High Speed Processing and Quality Inspection
Company: Beck Pack System A/S
Industry: Packaging for frozen fish
Location: Sandemandsvej 6, 3700 Rønne, Denmark
Replacing Years of Heavy Manual Labor
This project originated from a need to modernize a production process that had relied on years of physically demanding manual handling.
The primary purpose of the system is to transfer flexible products from high-density pallet stacks, separate them into manageable layers, and feed them into a downstream infeed mechanism. From there, the products continue to the next production stage, where they are pre-folded along designated fold lines.
Handling a Wide Range of Product Types
Handling these products requires a combination of strength, precision, and adaptability. The products vary significantly in shape, weight, dimensions, and material properties, making automation particularly challenging. To overcome these challenges, a highly flexible dual-arm robotic solution was developed. The robot system can accommodate multiple product variants while maintaining consistent handling performance, ensuring reliable operation across changing production requirements.
By automating the loading process, operators are no longer required to manually place products into the infeed mechanism one layer at a time. Instead, their role shifts towards supervising production and supplying pallets to the system.
The Side Effect: Removing manual operator inspection
While this significantly improves ergonomics and productivity, it also removes an important step from the process: the manual visual inspection and quality verification traditionally performed during loading.
To address this, a dedicated computer vision inspection system was integrated into the production line. The vision system automatically identifies and rejects defective products before they are stacked, packaged, and shipped to the customer. Operating entirely in real time, the system processes and evaluates every individual product at a throughput of 4.6 products per second, ensuring consistently high product quality without compromising production speed.
The Outcome: Improved Product Quality
The implementation of automated computer vision inspection delivers a significant quality advantage compared to the previous manual inspection process. Historically, quality control relied on the operator visually monitoring products during manual loading, effectively resulting in a sample-based inspection where only a fraction of the produced items could realistically be assessed.
With the introduction of computer vision, every single product is inspected against the same predefined quality criteria, eliminating the variability associated with human judgement, fatigue, and attention levels. This enables 100% in-line inspection at full production speed, providing a level of consistency and traceability that cannot be achieved through manual spot checks alone.
As a result, defects are identified and removed, reducing waste, minimizing the risk of customer complaints, and improving overall product quality. The system not only increases confidence in the final product but also provides valuable production data that can be used to identify trends, optimize processes, and continuously improve manufacturing performance.
Optizing Workflow and Throughput
To further optimize operator workflow and maximize equipment uptime, the robotic cell incorporates an integrated buffer system for empty pallets and separator sheets. This allows replenishment and removal operations to be carried out during production without interrupting the process. The cell is designed with a dual-zone safety architecture, enabling operators to safely access designated areas while the remaining parts of the system continue operating.
Following the automated quality inspection, the products are stacked into bundles of 100 units. A key achievement of the project was the complete elimination of production interruptions during stack changeovers. Product flow remains continuous even while finished stacks are exchanged, ensuring uninterrupted operation and maximizing overall hourly throughput.
The result is a highly automated production solution that improves ergonomics, increases productivity, maintains stringent quality standards, and delivers a stable, continuous product flow throughout the entire process.