Headquartered in Sugar Land, Tex.,Western Container Corp.has been a manufacturer of blow-molded PET bottles and injection-molded PET preforms for the Coca-Cola bottling system since 1979. The company operates four manufacturing plants throughout the U.S.—in Tolleson, Ariz., Hattiesburg, Miss., Fife, Wash., and Houston—producing 6 billion units per year.
西部集装箱工程和制造系统总监Darrel Smith，为本公司处理资本采购和机器设计和安装，是一个强大的倡导者，用于自动化植物内的过程。Shares Smith，每个西部集装箱的植物都利用激光引导车辆（LGV）以及其他机器人系统。
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While some of the desire to automate is a response to the always-tight labor market, it’s not the main reason, says Smith. “It’s the total cost of business that’s the driving force in putting in automation,” he explains. “It’s a more efficient, productive way to run the business.”
In early 2019, Western Container embarked on a project to add LGVs to its Hattiesburg plant. However, this meant one of its manual operations had to be automated to remove the operator from the path of the LGVs. The task involved placing lids on top of reusable plastic bins, fromOrbis以速度保持成品的预成型坯，以1,000个速度/日。
可重复使用的箱子占据一堆宠物预制件，在某些情况下需要在盖子可以放置之前平整。虽然史密斯在过去与其他机器人集成商合作，但他达到了一个更为的地方运营，DePeuter Packaging Solutions (DPPS), in Houston, to provide guidance on automating the lid-placing process. Smith had several requirements for the system. One was that it needed to be able to meet speeds of 45 bins/hr. Next, it had to be able to handle the plastic lids, which weigh 12 lb and measure 40 x 48 in., as well as square them before placing them on top of the tote, without having to use complex vision systems. “The lids might be out of alignment on the stack—for example, a half an inch—so you’ve got to bring the lid to a zero point before you can put it on a bin,” Smith explains. “Otherwise, you’ll put it a half-inch out of skew on the load.”
最终要求是可靠性。“一旦我们投入系统，就不再是一个站在该地区的人，”史密斯说。“所以必须能够跑。”
为了解决这些要求，Depeuter设计了一个配备的细胞YaskawaGP35L six-axis general-purpose robot that features a 35-kg payload, a 2,538-mm horizontal reach, and a 4,449-mm vertical reach. It also supplied the cell’s conveyors, guarding, and PLCs.
The lids are delivered to the cell by an LGV, after which the DePeuter-designed system takes control of them, indexing the stack into the cell. When a lid is ready to be placed on a tote, if it’s out of center, it’s set in a gravity jig, where it falls to a zero point, after which it’s repicked by the robot. When the bin comes into place, the end-of-arm tool (EOAT) wipes down the pile of preforms in the bin to make it level, and places the lid on top of the bin. Once the lid is placed, the bin is carried out of the cell by conveyor.
机器人配备了定制设计的o燕，可以拿起沉重的塑料盖子并擦拭箱的内容。To perform the tasks of picking up the heavy plastic lids and wiping down the contents of the bins, the robot is equipped with an EOAT custom-designed by DePeuter. As Smith explains, the robot picks and places the lid using a series of vacuum pads, while a plastic plate attached to the EOAT is responsible for wiping down the pile. “The robot runs a series of movements and actually levels the pile of preforms, moving in different directions,” he says.
However, not all bins have contents that require leveling. It depends on the size/quantity of the preforms within and whether the bins even get a lid, as some preforms are packed in bags inside the bins, per the customer’s request, eliminating the need for a lid. “Another good thing that DePeuter has done is they made the HMI screen very user-friendly,” says Smith. “And so we can make changes to the process very easily. We built all that on the front end, and it worked out perfectly.”
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每个bin都标有条形码，条形码包含有关容器内部的内容的信息。当箱子进入细胞时，aKeyencecamera takes a picture of the barcode, after which it interrogates the barcode data, which is used to determine the program that should be run for that bin. “Does it not put a lid on it? Does it not wipe it? Does it put a lid on and no wipe? It’s just a series of programs it can run based on the barcode,” says Smith.
Since the system was installed in the Hattiesburg plant in October 2019, Smith says it has exceeded his expectations in both performance and reliability,placing more than 120,000 lids/yr.事实上，史密斯如此满意，他订购了来自集成商的第二个机器人盖配上系统，该系统于2021年7月安装在西部集装箱的Tolleson工厂。
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