Packing bake-off rolls

In a progressive bakery in Belgium, 14 robots play a key role in inserting, packing and palletizing bake-off rolls. Thanks to DERO GROEP's innovative solutions, the entire packaging process runs automatically and allows tens of thousands of products to be processed efficiently every day.

In setting up the packaging department, DERO GROEP played a major role. The customer's need to fully automate the handling of packed and unpacked products was met in a completely customized way. With fourteen robots, divided over two lines, up to 30,000 products per hour can now be inserted, packed and palletized.

Loading the thermoformers with bake-off rolls is done by four robots per line. The robots remove the half-baked products from the baking tray and place them in the thermoformer. From the thermoformer, the vacuum packs are transported branch by branch to the packing robots. These robotic cells can insert all different patterns into a box. After the boxes are closed and labeled, they are stacked on pallets by a robot palletizer, which also handles the supply of empty pallets. 

The changeover of the various robot cells takes place in an instant: through interconnection, it is only necessary to enter the product to be rotated at one location and everything else is changed automatically.

The complete design of the packaging department was developed in-house by DERO GROEP. By working out and simulating the total concept in 3D, good insight into possible bottlenecks could be obtained at an early stage. As a result, the implementation and integration of packaging robots, conveyor systems, box erection and sealing machines, labeling equipment and line control went off without a hitch.