Palletizing is a core course of for a lot of companies, but it surely’s not with out its difficulties. The affect of some frequent pallet issues can embody larger product prices, delays in supply, and broken items.

Some issues value your online business greater than others. Employee harm, for instance, could be very detrimental, as can buyer dissatisfaction.

There are a lot of distinct issues that might happen in a palletizing course of. These vary from system design issues, like badly configured conveyor techniques, to human error throughout handbook palletizing.

Step one to overcoming frequent pallet issues is to determine them. By means of correct planning, coaching, and gear, you’ll be able to keep away from these frequent issues to maximise productiveness and profitability.

Here’s a information to five of the extra frequent palletizing issues and recommendations on how one can overcome them by including robots to your palletizing course of.

Kinds of palletizing issues you would possibly encounter

For such an apparently easy process, palletizing has many areas through which issues can go mistaken.

There isn’t a definitive listing of varieties of palletizing issues. However listed below are a couple of varieties of issues you would possibly encounter:

• Conveyor and feeding issues — Conveyors are used to maneuver supplies and merchandise all through your facility. They’re additionally prone to be the step instantly earlier than your palletizing course of. If not designed or maintained correctly, they will trigger points that have an effect on palletizing.

• Pallet loading points — Most of the product damages which are brought about throughout palletizing or subsequent cargo could be traced again to loading points. For instance, when items are positioned too shut collectively or too far aside on a pallet, they will transfer in transit.

• Pallet wrapping issues — One other main explanation for product harm is inaccurate wrapping of the crammed pallet. Wrapping is vital as a result of it helps defend items throughout transit. Frequent issues embody not utilizing sufficient stretch wrap, utilizing an excessive amount of, or utilizing the mistaken sort.

• Inconsistency issues — Once you carry out palletizing manually, many issues that happen are inconsistent. Individuals turn out to be drained after a protracted shift stacking containers onto a pallet. This will result in them making errors that have an effect on the standard or integrity of the palletizing.

• Effectivity issues — Maybe the least apparent sort of palletizing issues are these associated to process effectivity. It isn’t all the time apparent when a palletizing process is inefficient, however the impacts could be vital. You possibly can lose some huge cash and time by not bettering the effectivity of the duty.

These are only a few of the varieties of palletizing drawback you would possibly come throughout. However all can have an effect on the operation of your online business and palletizing course of.

5 frequent pallet issues and how one can overcome them with robots

Robotic palletizing is now probably the most efficient methods to beat some frequent palletizing issues. Including a robotic may cut back some of the massive wastage that may happen with handbook palletizing.

Listed here are 5 particular frequent pallet issues and recommendations on how one can overcome every one with robots:

1. Pallet loading inefficiency

One drawback with handbook pallet loading is that it’s time consuming and liable to errors. It could possibly take a very long time for human employees to correctly stack objects onto a pallet, leading to longer wait occasions and decrease throughput.

There’s a whole analysis subject dedicated to this drawback, the place it is named The Palletizing Drawback. On this subject, researchers attempt to seek out essentially the most environment friendly loading sample of a selected pallet so packages could be securely transported.

Robots have a bonus over handbook palletizing as a result of they may all the time place packages within the programmed sample, which ensures they adhered this optimally environment friendly sample.

2. Misaligned packages on the pallet

Misaligned packages are frequent in handbook palletizing. Such packages could cause an unstable pallet, growing the danger that merchandise will transfer round throughout transit or storage.

Robotic palletizing might help cut back misalignment by making certain a exact placement of containers each time. The accuracy required for palletizing is sort of low in comparison with, say, tremendous meeting actions. Because of this robots can place packages shortly and nonetheless obtain higher accuracy than human employees.

3. Inconsistent palletizing high quality

Inconsistent palletizing is frequent with handbook labor as individuals work lengthy shifts. It is typically laborious to trace inconsistencies as a result of, by nature, the errors fluctuate each time. This will trigger an absence of visibility of frequent errors, growing the danger of pricey and time-consuming errors.

Consistency is among the main advantages of robots. Robotic palletizing is thus an efficient answer to this frequent drawback.

4. Inaccurate stock counts

It is laborious for human employees to recollect to log or scan each merchandise that they place on a pallet. Over lengthy shifts, it is inevitable that individuals will inaccurately rely no less than one thing. This results in inaccurate stock counts.

Robotic palletizing might help cut back the danger of inaccurate stock counts, as robots can precisely rely each field that it locations. You may also add sensors to robotically scan every field utilizing a scanner or imaginative and prescient sensor.

5. Damages brought on by dropping merchandise

Handbook palletizing can result in product damages in varied methods. Persons are typically in a rush when palletizing, particularly if it’s only one among their many duties throughout a day.

Examples of ways in which merchandise could be broken embody containers falling in transit due to unhealthy stacking and dropping containers in the course of the palletizing process.

Will robotic palletizing remedy your pallet issues?

In case your palletizing course of has extra issues than you prefer to it to have, it’s totally seemingly that robotics may very well be an efficient answer.

To seek out out, it is a good suggestion to get in contact with a provider of robotic palletizing options. The Robotiq Palletizing Answer affords varied configurations to go well with an unlimited vary of palletizing duties.

With the fitting robotic in place, you’ll be able to enhance the accuracy, effectivity, and security of your palletizing process.

What issues have you ever encountered together with your palletizing? Inform us within the feedback under or be part of the dialogue on LinkedIn, Twitter, Fb, or the DoF skilled robotics group.