Millions under control A UR robot stacks boxes full of fine wines

Handling wine crates with different characteristics is no pleasure for employees. Here, the managing director Raumland, Sebastian Raumland, reveals how life became easier...

Raumland GmbH, now in its third generation, bottles wines for the cellar industry. There, analysis, filtration, labeling, and shipping are also performed, partially overseas. With over five million bottles and 2,500 different wine varieties annually, Raumland handles an enormous diversity in its bottling operations. Not having to palletize manually at the end of the bottling line had long been a dream for Raumland. Employees moved up to 40 tons of package mass per 8-hour shift. With the great variety of wines—and thus significant demands on different packaging—conventional automation reached its limits. Every automation specialist somehow always had a disadvantage, whether in terms of flexibility, size of equipment, or price. To focus on product quality, enhance efficiency, and relieve employees, the family business relies on a collaborative robot from Universal Robots. With a payload of 20 kilograms, a Cobot model UR20 palletizes wine cartons at the end of the bottling line, ensuring consistency of processes at Raumland. The robotic system is just right for this type of stacking work. Not least, this helper required no overly high investment.

Handle various cartons with a cobot

The realization of Raumland's dream came with the UR20. The Cobot is flexible enough, compact, and quick to adapt, allowing it to reliably handle different cartons and palletizing patterns. The UR20 stands at the end of the bottling line between two Euro pallets on a pedestal. It is part of the "PE20 Palletizing Solution" from Robotiq, a partner of UR. Using a wide vacuum gripper, it picks up two wine cartons at a time from the conveyor and palletizes them precisely. When a pallet is fully loaded, an employee transports it away. Meanwhile, the Cobot continues stacking on the second pallet. The collaborative technology allows the robotic arm to work safely next to the staff without protective enclosures.

Here, the cobot still does not eliminate jobs

As soon as a different wine passes through the bottling line, the Cobot's program is adjusted using the Teach Pendant. Each carton has its own characteristics and behaves differently in the machine. Therefore, Raumland has stored a separate program for each customer to precisely meet their requirements. Based on the positive experiences with the UR Cobot and the overall system, it would not be bad to have more such easy-to-use systems available. By continuously palletizing, the operation makes the process efficient and minimizes bottlenecks at the end of the line. The tedious and physically demanding stacking is eliminated. No one needs to worry about their job, as the staff still have plenty of work at the end.