Baking & Snack - September 2016 - 184

ROBOTS

ery beyond just the packaging department or pan
and lid handling as well as improve those existing
applications.
"The more technology changes, the more defined it
gets, the better things operate," said Bob Harrington,
vice-president, sales and marketing, Capway Automation, Inc. This finesse is critical to the way robots

Robots with sight
Robots may be moving up on the production line and doing
more delicate work, but these tasks would only be possible
with the aid of vision systems. While robotics can move
pans, lids and cases around without sight, activities such as
scoring, inspection and alignment all require the robot to be
able to see the product being handled.
"This type of robot is dependent on a vision system," said
Terry Bartsch, vice-president, sales, Shaffer, a Bundy Baking
Solution. "The vision system is what feeds information to the
robot about the product orientation and the quality parameters." Shaffer's Bun-PAQ robotic system aligns, orients,
balances cluster buns as they approach the packaging line.
The robot can do quality inspection with a high definition
color camera. "The vision system can detect color and shape
irregularities and tell the robot to reject a particular cluster."
BluePrint Automation's vision-guided robotics can pick
multiple lanes of un-oriented product to be placed in cartons, trays, cases, flowwrappers and cartoners. The vision
on the robots improves accuracy, flexibility and throughput
while offering the labor saving benefits of robotics.
ABI's Katana Scoring also depends on a complex vision system, according to Alex Kuperman, co-founder and
president of the company. "The vision tools allow Katana to
determine the position, orientation and topography of each
product," he said. This ensures that the robot scores each
product correctly, according to its programming.
With the aid of vision systems, robots can inspect products and balance
their flow when entering the packaging department.
Shaffer, a Bundy Baking Solution

184 Baking & Snack September 2016 / www.bakingandsnack.com

move, and as it becomes more precise, robotic handling improves. In pan and lid handling, millimeters
of movement matter. Alignment matters, so the more
control the robot can exert, the better for operations.
"Everything comes down to the controls," he said. "As
the controls become more finite, that allows us to become more finite."
Accuracy combined with quick-changing tools
enables robots to do a plethora of jobs, and their increasing speed gives bakers more options. "A good
solutions provider should have the ability to develop
suitable end effectors to handle the product quickly
and gently, changing axis and maneuvering into exactly the right position," Mr. Anderson said. "The robots are getting smaller and faster; therefore, less real
estate is required to install a solution compared with
a few years ago."
BluePrint Automation designed its three- and fouraxis Delta style robots to address flexibility. Through
automation, these robots make frequent changeovers
faster and are easier to manage, particularly for smaller
wholesale bakers who need nimble production lines.
The company's high-flow end effector also improves productivity. On a pancake/waffle production
line, this system can stack products before placing it
into the wrapper, thus increasing speed and efficiency.

Robots move upstream
The playing field for robotics is expanding. No longer are they confined to picking and placing boxes
ready to be shipped to customers. Technology today
allows other repetitive tasks to be picked up by such
machines.
"Where the shift is taking place now is that there is a
developing trend in the use of robotics in the processing of baked goods and other food products, long before
they reach the packaging stage," Mr. Kuperman said.
Today's robots can align and inspect products
heading to the packaging line as well as perform more
delicate tasks such as scoring and slicing bread, even
decorating cakes. Better sanitary design of the robots
has been instrumental in this move upstream.
"We see the sanitary design aspects of robots improving on a yearly basis," Mr. Hoskins said. "This
will help bakers automate the front end of their lines
- an area that has really lacked the implementation
of robotics because the sanitary requirements are
more stringent than in the packaging area."
ABI's latest advances in technology take robots upstream in production with the Katana line of robotically enhanced cutting systems for scoring and slicing
and the Cake Sculptor for decorating cakes.
Katana Scoring uses a complex vision system to de-

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