Capacity flies up at FrieslandCampina Bornem.

Wendy and Walter are indispensable forces at the factory of FrieslandCampina Bornem. Since many years, these robots play a key role in the automated production process of coffee creamer cups. DERO GROEP stood at the cradle of this automation and has been performing maintenance on the robots for years. When the need for additional production capacity grew, DERO GROEP was brought in again to help think of a solution. 

In the Belgian town of Bornem, FrieslandCampina produces and packs dairy products such as Chocomel, Fristi, Nutroma and Campina. Every day thousands of bottles, cans and cups are filled and behind each product is a clever automated production process. 

Handling coffee creamer cups

Maro Dedel, founder of DERO GROEP, first visited Bornem in the early '90s. "Back then it was still a Nutricia factory," Maro recalls. "Our first project here was to automate the handling of coffee creamer cups." For this, Wendy was introduced, a robot on a longitudinal conveyor that moves baskets with the cups between the filling, pasteurization and packaging machines.

Next followed a project for feeding empty cups to the filling machines and palletizing the packaged cups. A special solution was developed for this: the Nobot ('not a robot'). Maro: "I built this 3-axis manipulator myself about 35 years ago and it has served as a supply system for the empty cups all these years."

The supply was supported by a robot with a unique dual role: taking empty cups out of the box as well as palletizing the filled boxes. The process thus began and ended with the same robot, which today goes by the name Walter. An efficient allrounder, but in recent years the need for additional production capacity grew.

The robots at FrieslandCampina Bornem through the years. With the latest solution, both the robot and capacity soar to new heights.

To a new height

And so the supply had to go up. DERO GROEP has already carried out several upgrades and replacements over the years, and this time, too, FrieslandCampina came to DERO GROEP asking to help think of a solution. "With its dual function, robot Walter became a bottleneck," explains Bart Buzink, project manager at DERO GROEP. "We then decided to separate infeed and outfeed. Walter was converted for palletizing only and thus the outfeed capacity could be increased considerably." 

But supplying empty cups to the filling machines still posed a challenge. The available space was limited and that did not make it easy to find a solution that met contemporary safety measures. Bart: "We eventually found the solution in a robot at height, riding on a track. The robot takes complete boxes of empty cups and unloads them at the filling machines themselves." Thus, after 35 years of faithful service, the Nobot has been replaced by a full-fledged robotic solution. With this flying force, total production capacity is increased to as many as 75.000 cups per hour.

Flying start

Besides the technical solution, the short installation schedule was also quite a challenge. “By testing everything extensively in advance, replicating the situation in our workshop and working with day and night shifts during installation, a smooth start-up at the customer was possible,” says Bart. Thanks to the project team full of motivated technicians, production even started operating automatically 1,5 weeks earlier.

And the name of this new robot? Bart smiles and explains how it came about: “In our workshop, the buzzer had been changed to a kind of bird sound as a joke and we had forgotten to put it back. When the customer came by for the acceptance test, that sound immediately caught their attention in a positive way.” Combined with the robot's yellow color and that it moves through the factory flying, so to speak, this robot was given the fitting name Tweety!

Wondering how smart robot solutions can enhance your production process? Contact us, we would love to think along with you.