Robot wins on aggregate

A leading special-purpose machine builder has released a video - see above - showing a robot working as part of a flagship form-fill-seal bagging system in the aggregate industry.

In the video, Haith – one of the UK’s premiere designers and manufacturers of specialised machinery – is shown deploying a Kawasaki CP180L robot as part of a typical form-fill-seal system. The robot is seen picking up the filled and sealed bags of aggregate, each weighing up to 40kg, lifting and rotating them through 90° and then stacking them in the approved and programmed pattern onto adjacent pallets ready for despatch.

Major machine exporter

Established more than 65 years ago and still family owned and run, Haith Group, in addition to a significant UK customer base, also exported machines to 13 countries in 2020. Haith’s special build capabilities include bespoke palletising and bagging systems, as well as tailored, fully mobile form-fill-seal machines for aggregate and root crop handling systems.

Commenting on a record year for sales of its latest systems featuring the robot palletising facility, Haith’s Carl Taylor observes: “We have used Kawasaki robots exclusively for more than 25 years on all our special-purpose systems. They have performed faultlessly. Our business has established a hard-won reputation for designing and delivering systems with unrivalled durability and reliability, coupled with a lengthy service life. That is exactly what our experience of Kawasaki robots has been, too.”

26 years of partnering

Kawasaki Robotics’ Ian Hensman adds: “We are in our 26th year of partnership with Haith and are delighted to have secured this latest order from them. Their machines are precisely tailored to customer requirements, and our robots offer the freedoms, flexibilities and durability that the Haith design team know they can rely on.”

Kawasaki’s CP180L is widely used across many industries. It is particularly suited to challenging applications in arduous environments where heavy payloads and high precision, coupled with speed and accuracy, are required. Carrying its maximum payload of 180kg, the 5-axis robot offers a reach of 3,255mm and a palletising capability of more than 2,000 cycles/hr. Despite the speed, positional accuracy when carrying the 180kg payload at maximum reach is +/- 0.5mm.