Which palletizer system will be best for you?

There are many options from many different brands. How can you pick the right one for your needs?

You’ve got a palletizing operation and it needs to be automated.

Your packaging process is just too slow to keep up with the throughput that your production requires. You know that automating the palletizing step is the only way to achieve the throughput that you need.

How many option we have?

First let see how many options we have. Palletizing may seem like quite a simple application — you are only arranging and stacking objects onto a pallet. You might assume that there are only one or two different solutions for automating a palletizing task in your business.

But, there are a surprising number of palletizing systems available.

So simple answer of question is so many but actually we can categorize options in 4 main categories.

1- Manually

We can handle all bottles and pallets. This method looks simplest method but the limit of human ability to lift heavy objects as well as human height, the maximum number of bottles on a pallet is limited to 2 floors and the number of bottle production per hour is very limited.

2- Semi-automatic solution

In semi-automatic solution such as gate palletizer, transporting bottles is done by machine, but other work must be done by workers. This method reduces some of the problems, speeds up production, but does not change safety concerns and the number of workers (including operator and assistances) much.

3- automatic single column palletizer

The main alternative to robotic palletizing in 5 gallon bottling industry is known as an automatic single column palletizer.

Automatic single column palletizers are huge, multi-level machines that sit towards the end of a production line.

Products are fed into the machine via conveyors. They are moved to the right position and orientation using actuators or fixtures along the conveyor. The single-column palletizer puts the first part of the products together on the pallet and then places a barrier on them. Then place the second part on the separator. Finally, palletizer can place the bottles up to multi-layers on the pallet.

The machine palletize the finished big bottle water automatic and easy unload and improve the water factory production effective and reduce labor cost.

4- Robotic arm

Probably the biggest benefit of robots in big bottle water bottling factory is unloading empty bottle from pallet to product line and loading filled bottle on pallet in same time.  It’s so great to provide fully automatic product line for mega size factory but also have some limitations especially for middle size factory:

- Same space shall be provided for empty and filled bottle in warehouse. Empty bottles are very light and many more can be stored in different ways in less space, but this is not possible in a robotic system.

- The production line is a closed loop and all bottles have to go through the same process, but in practical situation, a number of bottles need to be pre-washed extra and must be separated from the rest of the bottles, which requires an additional inspection process.

- Special pallet need

- System is more complicated and Maintenance is not easy as other type of palletizer.

Which one should you choose?

There is no option that is suitable for everyone, but you can choose the right option based on production capacity, labor costs, and available warehouse space. The table below can help you make the right choice.

R	Item	Manually	Semi-automatic palletizer	single column palletizer	Robotic arm
1	No. of Operator and assistance	4~8	2~3	1~2	1~2
2	Capital cost (Capex)	Lowest	high	higher	Very high
3	Safety	Very Low	Medium	Good	Good
4	Barrel loss	High	Low	Very Low	Very Low
5	Complexity	--	Medium	high	Very high
6	Flexibility		Not flexible	Not flexible	flexible
7	Production capacity	Low	Medium	high	Very high