Ice Cream Manufacturer Gains Efficiency with Automated Palletizing Upgrades
SPI Automation solves programming problems, boosting performance and integration between conveyors and robots.
A 100-year-old U.S. ice cream brand worked with SPI Automation to increase the efficiency rate of its automatic palletizing system.
A 100-year-old ice cream brand known for producing popular frozen treats and novelties turned to SPI Automation for help with automatic palletizing.
The manufacturer was struggling with its existing automated palletizing system, experiencing significant issues as soon as the new system was installed. The efficiency rate was down to about 30% and there were frequent backups, downtime and inefficiencies in recirculation due to layout and programming problems.
For nearly two years, the ice cream manufacturer attempted to work with the vendor to resolve the issues without success, leaving personnel frustrated and overwhelmed.
Eventually, the frozen food company was referred to SPI Automation, which creates custom solutions for manufacturers to automate their operations. From robotics to integrated systems and the controls that power them, SPI Automation designs, manufactures, installs and supports solutions to augment human potential.
By prioritizing the pain points so they could address the most pressing needs first, the SPI team was able to provide solutions quickly.
“We worked with the customer to define what they considered success. We both had a goal to help make decisions related to the necessary improvements. This helped with prioritization when it came to justifying the expense for a given task,” said Ryan Park, director of sales and marketing at SPI Automation. “Once we had a list of issues, we asked the customer to sort it based on what was causing the most downtime. Our belief was that if we started by addressing the issues causing the most downtime, it would naturally knock lower priority items off the list simultaneously. This has proven to be a successful strategy.”
Through programming updates using best practices and standardized code, SPI improved the company’s sorting, robot performance and integration between its conveyors and robots, as well as addressing pallet tracking. At least one engineer was on site until the issues were all resolved.
After working with SPI Automation, the ice cream producer’s throughput rate jumped from 30% to 95%.
The company also saved a significant amount of money on the solution, because SPI resolved the issues by updating the programming, it was able to work on a time-and-materials-based billing structure, meaning there was no major upfront fee.
SPI Automation is currently making hardware improvements to drive the palletizing system efficiency even higher. The next project will involve moving upstream to improve other processing steps.
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