Palletizing is a core course of for a lot of companies, nevertheless it’s not with out its difficulties. The influence of some widespread pallet issues can embrace increased product prices, delays in supply, and broken items.
Some issues value what you are promoting greater than others. Employee damage, for instance, will be very detrimental, as can buyer dissatisfaction.
There are numerous distinct issues that would happen in a palletizing course of. These vary from system design issues, like badly configured conveyor programs, to human error throughout guide palletizing.
Step one to overcoming widespread pallet issues is to establish them. By means of correct planning, coaching, and gear, you may keep away from these widespread issues to maximise productiveness and profitability.
Here’s a information to five of the extra widespread palletizing issues and tips about how one can overcome them by including robots to your palletizing course of.
Kinds of palletizing issues you may encounter
For such an apparently easy activity, palletizing has many areas by which issues can go fallacious.
There isn’t a definitive record of varieties of palletizing issues. However listed here are a number of varieties of issues you may encounter:
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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’ll trigger points that have an effect on palletizing.
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Pallet loading points — Most of the product damages which might be triggered throughout palletizing or subsequent cargo will be traced again to loading points. For instance, when items are positioned too shut collectively or too far aside on a pallet, they’ll transfer in transit.
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Pallet wrapping issues — One other main explanation for product harm is inaccurate wrapping of the crammed pallet. Wrapping is necessary as a result of it helps defend items throughout transit. Frequent issues embrace not utilizing sufficient stretch wrap, utilizing an excessive amount of, or utilizing the fallacious kind.
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Inconsistency issues — Once you carry out palletizing manually, many issues that happen are inconsistent. Individuals change into drained after an extended 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.
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Effectivity issues — Maybe the least apparent kind of palletizing issues are these associated to activity effectivity. It is not at all times apparent when a palletizing activity is inefficient, however the impacts will 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 downside you may come throughout. However all can have an effect on the operation of what you are promoting and palletizing course of.
5 widespread pallet issues and how one can overcome them with robots
Robotic palletizing is now one of the vital efficient methods to beat some widespread palletizing issues. Including a robotic may also scale back some of the massive wastage that may happen with guide palletizing.
Listed here are 5 particular widespread pallet issues and tips about how one can overcome every one with robots:
1. Pallet loading inefficiency
One downside with guide pallet loading is that it’s time consuming and susceptible to errors. It could possibly take a very long time for human staff to correctly stack objects onto a pallet, leading to longer wait occasions and decrease throughput.
There’s a whole analysis area dedicated to this downside, the place it is named The Palletizing Drawback. On this area, researchers attempt to search out probably the most environment friendly loading sample of a specific pallet so packages will be securely transported.
Robots have a bonus over guide palletizing as a result of they may at all times place packages within the programmed sample, which ensures they adhered this optimally environment friendly sample.
2. Misaligned packages on the pallet
Misaligned packages are widespread in guide palletizing. Such packages may cause an unstable pallet, growing the danger that merchandise will transfer round throughout transit or storage.
Robotic palletizing may also help scale back misalignment by guaranteeing a exact placement of containers each time. The accuracy required for palletizing is kind of low in comparison with, say, high-quality meeting actions. Which means robots can place packages rapidly and nonetheless obtain higher accuracy than human staff.
3. Inconsistent palletizing high quality
Inconsistent palletizing is widespread with guide labor as folks work lengthy shifts. It is usually arduous to trace inconsistencies as a result of, by nature, the errors fluctuate each time. This will trigger a scarcity of visibility of widespread errors, growing the danger of expensive and time-consuming errors.
Consistency is without doubt one of the main advantages of robots. Robotic palletizing is thus an efficient answer to this widespread downside.
4. Inaccurate stock counts
It is arduous for human staff 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 may also help scale back the danger of inaccurate stock counts, as robots can precisely rely each field that it locations. You can even add sensors to mechanically scan every field utilizing a scanner or imaginative and prescient sensor.
5. Damages attributable to dropping merchandise
Handbook palletizing can result in product damages in numerous methods. Persons are usually in a rush when palletizing, particularly if it is just considered one of their many duties throughout a day.
Examples of ways in which merchandise will be broken embrace containers falling in transit due to unhealthy stacking and dropping containers in the course of the palletizing activity.
Will robotic palletizing resolve your pallet issues?
In case your palletizing course of has extra issues than you want to it to have, it’s extremely probably that robotics could possibly be an efficient answer.
To search out out, it is a good suggestion to get in contact with a provider of robotic palletizing options. The Robotiq Palletizing Resolution presents numerous configurations to swimsuit an enormous vary of palletizing duties.
With the best robotic in place, you may enhance the accuracy, effectivity, and security of your palletizing activity.
What issues have you ever encountered along with your palletizing? Inform us within the feedback beneath or be a part of the dialogue on LinkedIn, Twitter, Fb, or the DoF skilled robotics group.