Palletizing Robot for Sack Palletizing Line in the Netherlands

Customer Profile

A multinational company operating in the decorative paints and coatings sector for construction and automotive needed an automated palletizing line for sacks containing silica powder. The goal was to handle pallet heights up to 2,400 mm in a highly dusty industrial environment, within the facility located in the Netherlands.

Operational Challenges

The project involved several technical complexities:

• Handling sacks of various sizes and weights, including bulky formats such as 520×750×215 mm and 650×840/890×190/210 mm.
• Use of pallets of various sizes, including non-standard formats like 900x1350 mm, etc.
• Need to place a paper tray at the bottom of the pallet before the first layer.
• Real-time sack weight control, with automatic rejection of out-of-spec products.
• Integration with a metal detector and automated management of contaminated sacks.
• Presence of big bags in transit on the same conveyor line.
• Highly dusty environment requiring a robust and safe solution.

Europack Solution: A complete line with Winner 250 palletizing robot

Europack provided a custom-designed sack palletizing line equipped with a Winner 250 palletizing robot. The configuration included:

• A Winner 250 robot with an extended-height column and XL fork gripper pick up head for large sacks, controlled via Siemens TP15 panel.
• A bag pressing station to optimize the shape of valve sacks before picking.
• A dynamic weighing system with load cells that detects under/overweight sacks and diverts them onto a dedicated roller conveyor.
• An automatic tray opener that inserts paper sheets placed by the robot at the bottom of the pallet completely automatically.
• A KERS system for kinetic energy recovery, providing up to 20% energy savings.
• Dust protection system, essential for the customer's production environment.

Operation of the bags palletizing line

The process follows these steps:

• The sack is transported via belt conveyors, passing through the pressing station.
• In-line weighing is performed, with data sent to the control system.
• Out-of-spec sacks are automatically diverted to a dedicated roller conveyor.
• A paper tray is placed into the empty pallet and opened by a dedicated device.
• The palletizing robot stacks the sacks in ordered layers up to a height of 2,400 mm.
• The complete pallet moves on a motorized roller conveyor to the wrapping or storage station.

Customer Benefits and Europack Competitive Advantages

Thanks to Europack technology, the results achieved were significant:

• Pallet height up to 2,400 mm was achieved.
• The KERS system reduced energy consumption by 20%.
• The integration of weight control and metal detector eliminated untracked rejects, improving process reliability and saving space with an integrated system.
• Estimated return on investment (ROI) is less than 18 months.
• Proven experience: over 30 years in business and more than 1,500 systems installed worldwide.
• Advanced proprietary technology: the palletizing robot is specifically designed for industrial environments and challenging products such as valve sacks.

(The values were reported by the customer after the system testing.)