Magic Valley Produce, based totally in Paul, Idaho, has been supplying potatoes for greater than 60 years. But if hard work shortages started to have an effect on its palletizing operations, the corporate wanted a brand new answer. The problem: Its facility had restricted ground area and treated heavy, awkward containers that made automation tough.
Magic Valley’s palletizing house couldn’t accommodate conventional commercial robots, which require fencing and extra space to perform. On the similar time, the provider was once involved that cobots may now not be capable of carry its 52.5-pound circumstances of potatoes or deal with its two-piece containers with unfastened lids.
That’s when Magic Valley introduced in a methods integrator (WeAssistBots, a FANUC approved machine integrator) to assist design an automation machine that might meet its distinctive wishes. The corporate washes, grades, sizes and packs Delish Logo Idaho potatoes of their packing facility and distributes them to retail and foodservice shops during the USA and Canada.
In combination, the group decided on the FANUC CR-35iB cobot, probably the most business’s most powerful collaborative robots. With a 35 kg (about 77 kilos) payload and an extended achieve, the CR-35iB can paintings safely along other folks with out the will for fencing. Its small footprint made it supreme for Magic Valley’s constrained palletizing house. The appliance stacks two pallets from ground to ceiling on all sides of the cobot, taking much less area than having staff within the house.
The cobot was once provided with two OnRobot 2FGP20 electrical finger grippers to deal with the containers. The grippers come with steel plates and curved hands that may slide underneath the containers and raise them securely, fixing the issue of the unfastened field lids.
Nowadays, the automatic machine has helped Magic Valley care for throughput with out hiring further team of workers for palletizing.
“Thankfully, with the FANUC cobot and the OnRobot gripper, we’ve discovered one thing that’s in reality labored smartly for us,” says Dean Gibson, co-owner and controller of Magic Valley Produce.
Magic Valley continues to make use of the machine day by day and is comparing further programs for collaborative automation in different spaces of its facility.
