Reconfigurable Automation of Carton Packaging with Robotic Technology

In the highly competitive food market, a wide variety of cartons is used for packaging with attractive forms, eye-catching shapes and various structures from a logistical and a marketing point of view. These frequent changes require innovative packaging. Hence, for some complex styles like origami cartons and cartons for small batch products, most confectionery companies have to resort to using manual efforts, a more expensive process adding cost to the final products, particularly when an expensive seasonal labor supply is required. This manual operating line must go through an expensive induction and training program to teach employees how to erect a carton. Current machines are only used for the same general style or are specifically designed for a fixed type of cartons and all new cartons require development and manufacture of new tooling for this machinery. New tooling is also required for each different pack size and format. The development and manufacture of this tooling can be very expensive and increases the manufacturer’s lead time for introducing new products to market, therefore reducing the manufacturer’s ability to match changes in consumer demands. Tooling changeovers, when changing production from one packaging format to another, also adds cost to the manufacturer. It is uneconomical to produce a dedicated machine for a small batch production. Hence, in this high seasonal and competitive market, manufacturer needs a dexterous and reconfigurable machine for their variety and complexity in attracting customers. The machines are expected to reconfigure themselves to adapt to different types of cartons and to follow different instructions for various closing methods. Rapid expansion of robotics and automation technology in recent years has led to development of robots in packaging industry. Though pick and place robots were extensively used, complex tasks for erecting and closing origami-type cartons still resort to manual operations. This presents a challenge to robotics. Some related areas with carton folding on the problem of creating 3-D sheet metal parts from sheet metal blanks by bending are explored by some researchers to provide a starting point for exploration in this field when discussing folding sequences based on their objective function, consisting of a high-level planner that determines the sequence of bends, and a number of low level planners for individual actions. deVin (de Vin et al.,1994) described a computer-aided process planning system to determine bending sequences for sheet-metal manufacturing. Shpitalni and Saddan (Shpitalni & Saddan., 1994) described a system to