One of the side effects of the world's deciding to avoid gluten and an increasingly insistent need to produce food sources of protein, is a surge in the popularity of lupins - legumes like soybeans, peas and lentils.
In Australia, lupins also play a vital role in the ecological balance of agriculture. West Australian manufacturer, Lupin Foods Australia, specialises in a range of foods based on Australian sweet lupin, which has been developed to meet the growing demand. It currently exports lupin products throughout the world, and is experiencing business growth in South East Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Western Europe.
In order to grow, Lupin Foods decided it needed a robotic solution to streamline its packing processes. And that is where ABB Authorized value provider and robotic automation specialist, Robotic Solutions WA, comes into the story.
Robotic Solutions' brief was to design a system that could simultaneously lower palletising costs and keep up with rising output levels. Lupin Foods needed high-speed, efficient system with the capacity to adapt as the business grew. It was given all that as well as lower health and safety risks and simplified worker training.
Lupin Foods Australia general manager, David Fienberg said that the company contacted Robotic Solutions WA because it had a track record of thinking outside the square and a solid reputation from ABB: "We looked at many robots and control systems and found Robotic Solutions offering was the most capable of adapting to our environment and growing with our business. ABB has a very strong name in Western Australia and around the world – in a diverse range of industries – and we were therefore confident that the support we'd receive would be more than sufficient to meet our needs.
"We developed a solution that allows us to produce 900 x 20 kilogram bags per hour, and stack them in such a way as to minimise our freight costs. The system has allowed us to remove wooden pallets from our process entirely, and therefore take advantage of the full capacity of our shipping containers. It also eliminates damage to our bags."
View ABB's demonstration of its Lupin Foods robotic solution:
Robotic Solutions WA only uses ABB robots. Robotic Solutions WA director, David Woodhouse, explained why, "They're very reliable, and there's a huge range, which makes selecting a robot for any application very easy.
"…We provided them [Lupin Foods Australia] with a turnkey system which included the system design, the robot, the gripper, the bag pick-up conveyor, everything inside the robot cell, all the safety fencing, and technical aftersales support and training."
Lupin Foods' new solution is based on an ABB IRB 460 high speed robotic palletiser. The compact, four axis robot is designed specifically for end-of-line and bag palletising, occupies 20% less floor space, and runs 15% faster than its nearest rivals.
Woodhouse continued, "The ABB IRB 460 robot is ideal for this application – it is a very fast, lightweight palletising robot that can achieve very fast cycle times. We're currently palletizing 15 bags per minute but there is scope there to go a lot faster if required. We don't have a pallet as such. The robot picks and places a plastic slip-sheet onto a roller conveyor. The robot then picks, clamps and places bags on the slip-sheet until the stack is complete. The stack is then lifted out of the robot cell and placed into a shipping container. And since we were able to use a standard gripper design, Lupin Foods Australia now has the option to introduce traditional palletising down the track, if the business requires it."
Lupin Foods Australia is able to select any of its different product types using the robot Flex Pendent, and the robot will alter the way it positions the bags to suit their size, including the number of bags it places per slip-sheet, and the number of layers per container, constantly working to maximise container space.
