Mixed pallets for beverages – layer patterns combined fully automatically

At the mineral water bottlers Brandenburger Urstromquelle in Baruth, Germany, Krones has installed an automatic repacking system for assembling beverage mixed pallets featuring an entirely new concept. From homogeneous pallets, the system creates mixed pallets with a maximum of four different product types. It includes a Pressant Universal bulk glass depalletiser, which in this case is used as a fulls unloader, Krones pallet and pack conveyors, and Modulpal 2A non-returnables palletiser with a shutter-type gripper head and a Robobox grouping system.

The repacking line unloads homogeneous product pallets in accordance with individualised recipe instructions, and packs them in order-specific mixed pallets for delivery to the customers. Each individual pack position on the mixed pallets can be specified separately for each layer using recipe instructions. The special feature here is that the client can at a central computer define the mixing ratio for the beverage packs on the pallet and the position of each individual pack in the layer, thus creating the desired layer pattern himself. This layer-referenced assignment had not been possible before. The data are then sent to the sweep-off depalletiser, the pallet conveyers, the pack conveyors and the palletiser, which create the appropriate pallets fully automatically.

The Pressant Universal sweep-off depalletiser can handle 180 layers an hour of the 1.5-litre bottle. At the Modulpal 2A palletiser, the layer patterns of the mixed pallet are created by the Robobox grouping station in line with its instructions from the higher-order control system. When handling the 1.5-litre bottle, the Robobox can output 90 half-product-pallets per hour, i.e. 45 europallets an hour.
 
The automatic repacking system for assembling mixed pallets went into operation in Baruth during the early summer of 2009. Brandenburger Urstromquelle thus accomplished a successful change-over from manual beverage repacking to layer-responsive fully automated repacking.