Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the July/August 2015 issue of Food Manufacturing The use of robotic technologies has long afforded manufacturers the advantages of greater productivity, higher product quality, reduced production costs and labor savings. Last year’s “Trends in Robotics Market Assessment 2014” from PMMI, illustrated the growth in robotics use. According to the study, 75 percent of end users employed robotics at some point on their manufacturing lines by 2014, compared with only 20 percent in 2008. Now, robots and their benefits are moving far beyond their early uses in palletizing, working their way upstream into more primary and secondary packaging applications. Networked and integrated PLCs Robotics solutions featured at PACK EXPO will reflect the trend towards upstream applications and seamless integration. Companies are taking two different approaches to integrating robotics into their packaging operations. The “networked approach” implements user-friendly programmable logic controller (PLC) software that sends commands to a separate robot controller. The other approach, favored by machine builders, is a unified control solution, or integrated, model in which one controller handles both machine and robot motion. These multi-tasking PLC platforms tightly coordinate robot movements with the linear motions of conveyors and other moving devices on the line, yielding more accurate and precise product handling. Benefits of the integrated model include greater ease in software programming and reductions in costs and footprints. When Rockwell Automation analyzed the market, it found that software integration was the number one concern among packaging machine builders and robot manufacturers, says Amy Peters, manager of business planning for Rockwell Automation. “Customers told us that we needed to tighten our integration. The cost of everything else is relatively small compared to the amount of time it takes to program, diagnose, troubleshoot and integrate at the software level. They want a vendor-agnostic […]