Hungry for automation?

1 September 2006



While UK food manufacturers have been relatively slow to embrace robotics, growing pressure for faster turnaround, shorter production runs and the technology’s ability to substantially enhance productivity are winning it many new friends. Rod Abbott reports


Even as global investment in industrial robots surges to record levels, with global orders in 2004 up 20% according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the uptake of this technology in the UK continues to lag behind other industrial countries.

With an estimated 14,000 plus installed units, there are just 40 robots for every 10,000 people employed in the UK manufacturing industry, compared with around 320 in Japan and 150 in Germany. Whatever the reasons for the UK’s apparent apathy, robotics and process automation specialist Barr & Paatz points out that the cost of a modern multi-axis industrial robot is on a par with a company car. Labour displacement is another reason why British manufacturing might resist robotics, yet Barr & Paatz contends that its impact on job losses is greatly exaggerated.

“While savings on labour content for automated processes is undoubtedly a cost benefit of this technology, in our experience installing industrial robots hardly ever puts people out of work,” says managing director Stirling Paatz. “Generally it frees them from routine, repetitive tasks and allows them to be redeployed into more appropriate work. Besides, robotics itself is creating new jobs, for technicians, engineers, programmers, supervisors and systems designers.”

Given the relatively slow proliferation of robots in the United Kingdom, it is no surprise to learn that the UK’s largest manufacturing sector and biggest user of packaging – the food industry – appears to have been just as indifferent to automation as any other UK business. Thankfully, most of the senior engineering personnel in UK food companies interviewed for the “Appetite for Automation” survey, by Manchester, UK-based engineering services and industrial automation group RTS (to obtain a copy, contact Sue Jones at RTS: +44 (0) 161 7772000 or E: sue.jones@rts-group.com), believe market pressures will prompt the industry to turn more to automation within the next five years or so.

“There are clearly some real opportunities for those companies with vision to get ahead and steal competitive advantage,” says David Bradford, managing director of RTS Flexible Systems, which sponsored the survey. “The onus is on suppliers like ourselves to work with the industry to raise awareness of the potential and versatility of automation. A key outcome of the survey has been the suggestion that the industry could benefit by developing new methodologies for justifying return on investment in automation projects to take account of their full commercial impact.”

The survey, conducted in association with The British Automation and Robotics Association, Food Processing Faraday Partnership and the North West Food Alliance, set out to explore why the UK food industry invests comparatively little in automation. Justifying the cost of an investment in automation was not always a “good fit” with a company’s standard return on investment expectations, according to some of those interviewed. Automation systems would go ahead providing the company’s financial and senior management could see a straightforward payback, most commonly within two and three years.

“We believe a key issue for the industry in the future is for companies to widen their horizons in justifying spend on automation by considering its wider impact on profitability,” argues Bradford. “Rather than calculating on straight labour replacement, a well-planned and specified automation project is likely to demonstrate other benefits, such as increased throughput, reduced waste or improved yield on raw materials.”

The survey also revealed a strong feeling that short-term contracts and cost squeezing from retailers were a disincentive to investment. Most thought more long-term relationships between retailers and their suppliers would trigger more investment in automation. A few companies said they were in talks with retailers about longer-term partnerships. Those questioned also felt strongly that “stop-start” contract relationships with retailers were holding companies back from investing in automation. The suggestion was, in essence, that the supermarkets were putting up barriers to reduce their own costs.

“There may be a way forward for those retailers with vision to develop longer-term relationships based on investment in automation,” says Bradford “Suppliers like ourselves can have a positive impact in helping retailers to access the technology and potential benefits.”

There was also apparently a widespread perception of a shortage of professional engineers with established food industry knowledge and experience in automation technology. While engineers could be recruited from other industries, and particularly automotive, training and development of good quality engineers is seen as a key driver for future investment. The survey also showed that respondents believed cost reduction was a key driver for investment in automation, particularly saving on labour costs. When prompted, respondents were able to recognise the potential of automation to increase capacity, improve hygiene and protect personnel health and safety.

“The good news was that there were no absolute barriers to automation. Our conclusion was that many barriers identified can be overcome with greater knowledge of the opportunities that robotic and automated technologies now afford,” says Bradford.

“There are some applications which will never be suitable for automation,” he continues, “but with developing technology and reduced equipment costs, the versatility and flexibility of robotics is increasing all the time. For those with foresight and a little entrepreneurial spirit automation affords some immediate opportunities to win commercial and competitive advantage.”

Managing director of TM Robotics (Europe) Nigel Smith adds a rider: “One factor this excellent research didn’t consider was the current state of the food market. With sales of traditional food items and highly processed food falling in the last quarter, and sales of healthfood rising, we can now see real evidence that the British public’s eating habits are changing.

“UK food manufacturers need to change or extend their product ranges to include more health food and alternative food products. Unless you are a manufacturer that has found a profitable niche market, high fat and high sugar now equal low sales. Without recognition of this, in the shape of greater flexibility on the factory floor, I doubt whether the long-term contracts between manufacturer and retailer called for in the survey will be forthcoming.

“Automation provides the flexibility required for switching a line from making high fat foods to more saleable items very quickly. And when seasonal demand, for instance, results in consumers craving less healthy products once more, robotics offers the flexibility to change back almost overnight. When more food manufacturers start to take their own advice and automate, they may well find that the long-term contracts they are looking for become a little easier to get signed.”

Not all food suppliers have negative feelings towards robotics – and Red Mill Snack Foods is just one of them. An automated system based on a Motoman SP100X, 160kg payload, 4-axis robot has replaced the arduous job of stacking cardboard cases of food products by hand at its Wednesbury factory in the West Midlands. Five bagging machines and production lines are served by the new system, which went live in August 2005. Costing £270 000, including conveyors and handling equipment supplied by Soco System (UK), the set-up has eliminated the need to employ up to three operators per shift, 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday. According to Red Mills' manufacturing director, Simon Faithfull, payback has been calculated at less than two and a half years.

Similarly, a high-speed Schubert automated packaging system has improved the efficiency of packing a wide variety of bakery products for Greggs, which is using a Schubert TLM-F44 top-loading machine to pack up to 850 savoury goods a minute into transport trays at its factory in Long Benton, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England. Schubert’s automated packaging machine is specially designed to rapidly guide the transport trays through the system in several cycles in order to fulfil the multi-layer application. It runs round-the-clock on a three-shift programme 5.5 days a week. The TLM-F44 line also features Schubert’s operator control system, that enables fast changeovers between packaging configurations. It is housed in a low-maintenance steel structure and is engineered to operate with minimal power consumption at low noise levels.

“We were impressed by the build quality of the system and the partnership forged by Schubert in developing the concept,” comments Paul Trickett, general manager at Greggs.

When business growth transformed production for biscuit manufacturer Voortman´s, the once small business had to adapt by intensifying the pace of its production in order to grow successfully. The company has expanded over the years and recently purchased a new Delta robot pick and place packaging line from Sigpack Systems in order to maintain production volumes. The tray loading line helps Voortman´s to keep up with supply and demand pressures at its 300,000 ft2 facility in Ontario. Robotics technology from Sigpack Systems enables the facility to produce over nine million biscuits a day. At the factory, Voortman´s uses Sigpack Systems Delta robots to package 17 varieties of biscuits and wafers.

The new line, capable of packaging more than 80,000 biscuits every hour, operates round-the-clock five days a week.

Fourteen Delta XR31 robots use gentle and precise vacuum grippers to pick up individual, freshly baked biscuits from the conveyor belt and transfer them into plastic trays that are supplied by a tray de-nester. Switching from one packaging format to another takes just a few minutes, since only the grippers and the software recipe need to be changed. “The benefits of using robotics to help package our cookies are enormous,” says Fred Heikamp, plant and property manager for Voortman´s. “Before we bought these machines, we would have six employees package the cookies by hand. The movements involved led to operators having problems with carpal tunnel syndrome, a wrist problem that is very painful and not easy to treat. Thanks to the robotic pickers this is no longer a problem.”

Sewtec Automation of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, has developed a multipack autofeed system for Fox’s Biscuits of Kirkham, Lancashire, an element of which uses two ABB IRB 340 FlexPicker robots. Fox’s management realised that any improvement over the existing manual multipack stacking methods offered real scope for increases in efficiency and reductions in cost. The work was labour-intensive and required frequent staff rotation to prevent the risk of RSI-type injuries. Fox’s engineering project manager Paul Fisher was involved in the sourcing of a fully automated system that had to meet a range of demanding parameters. The system needed to be easy to use, with a foolproof control system, reliable, capable of automatically balancing the speed of the two independent product infeeds with the existing rate of product outfeed and, most importantly, able to provide pay-back in under two years.

Sewtec designed a system comprising two servo-driven, vertical racetrack collators, two slat band conveyors, a Siemens-based control system, and two ABB IRB 340 FlexPicker robots.

ABB recently introduced the IRB 260, a top-loading robot with compact dimensions, large payload and high top speed, specifically designed for packaging applications. The robot is designed for easy integration into new or existing packaging lines, with the ability to reach close to its base for extra manoeuvrability and space saving. Lightweight and compact, the IRB 260 fits easily into small production cells, while its working range is optimised for an 800mm envelope. Additionally, the robot’s reach of 1.56m, plus its optional availability with IP67 protection, make it suitable for food handling. Packing cycle rate for small-box packing is 60 packs/min.

A new high-speed 6-axis industrial robot offering increased flexibility and compactness over SCARA type arms is now available from Fanuc Robotics UK. The M-6iB/2HS, with a payload capability of 2kg, can complete the industry-recognised pick and place motion pattern of 25 x 305 x 25mm at 94 cycles/min.

Aimed firmly at high-speed packaging and assembly applications, the M-6iB/2HS is designed for fast pick and place operations. The new arm has uprated motors producing major axis speeds of up to 260º/sec and a joint 6-wrist axis speed of 1200°/sec. The M-6iB/2HS has a compact space saving design using a reduced length between joints two and three. Its 6-axis configuration, combined with a reach of 0.951m, provides the robot with the versatility to place product to or from a tilted pallet or pallets positioned on multiple layers.

A new range of small payload robots, designed for the food and packaging industries has also been launched by KUKA Automation + Robotics. The KR5 range is capable of handling payloads between 5 and 10kg.The new robots are available in either 4-axis SCARA or 6-axis ROBOT versions, which are suitable for mounting either on the floor or ceiling. The range has the added benefit of having a removable hand-held teach pendant. The robots can be supplied in a choice of arm lengths from 650mm-850mm.

Whatever the UK’s relative conservatism and reluctance to fully embrace robotics compared with other parts of Europe it is clear manufacturers are not standing still; innovation, at a lower and lower cost, remains much to the fore. It also seems likely, given increasing pressures on food manufacturers particularly to achieve faster turnaround and develop and market an ever broader range of goods that the technology’s proven benefits – in terms of productivity, flexibility and time savings – will see the technology increasingly enthusiastically adopted in future even by those who have so far resisted its charms.


The robot completes the manoeuvre by placing the second layer ... The robot completes the manoeuvre by placing the second layer ...
KUKA’s KR5 high-speed, low payload range comprises models capable of ... KUKA’s KR5 high-speed, low payload range comprises models capable of ...
The multipack autofeed system at Fox’s, with Sewtec application engineer ... The multipack autofeed system at Fox’s, with Sewtec application engineer ...
Greggs is using a Schubert TLM-F44 top loading machine to ... Greggs is using a Schubert TLM-F44 top loading machine to ...
This Delta robot pick and place packaging line from Sigpack ... This Delta robot pick and place packaging line from Sigpack ...
Aimed at high-speed packaging and assembly applications, Fanuc’s M-6iB/2HS is ... Aimed at high-speed packaging and assembly applications, Fanuc’s M-6iB/2HS is ...
The Motoman palletising robot at Red Mill Snack Foods has ... The Motoman palletising robot at Red Mill Snack Foods has ...
ABB’s new IRB 260, a top-loading robot with compact dimensions, ... ABB’s new IRB 260, a top-loading robot with compact dimensions, ...


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