Automatic gantry palletising
November 1st 2007

United Biscuits, a leading European biscuit and snacks manufacturer, chose Güdel UK to provide an automatic gantry palletisation system at its KP Foods factory in Billingham.

Distribution from the Billingham factory continues 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Pallets are despatched from the factory both to United Biscuits' Midlands distribution centre and direct to customers.

All palletisation was previously undertaken manually, giving the company considerable challenges in terms of labour costs and space utilisation.

Mike Kirk, KP Foods' engineering manager, says, "Güdel was chosen to supply the automated solution because it offered an innovative solution, high quality technical proposals and, above all, value for money."

The system comprises four overhead gantry robots, each measuring 15 metres in length and each capable of placing cases onto eight pallets. The system has been designed to palletise the full product range with production lines working at full capacity. A conveyor system transports boxes to the palletisation hall where they are sorted to the correct gantry.

The gantry is a standard Güdel FP5 Area type machine. A specially designed vacuum head allows the system to pick up one, two or three boxes depending on box size and the layer pattern requirements. The flexible, dual purpose gripper unit is also used to handle empty pallets into the cell. In this operation, the gantry collects an empty pallet from a stack and transports it to any one of eight palletising positions within the cell.

The SCADA graphical user interface provided with the gantry allows the shift supervisors to continuously monitor the status of the entire system. Also, the control programme enables layer formation patterns to be easily modified, or new patterns created, by KP personnel.