Schubert propels French pastry manufacturer’s productivity with robot-assisted packing line

02 Aug 2022 --- Schubert has equipped French pastry manufacturer Bijou with a robot-assisted packing line for its madeleines and other sweet baked goods. The TLM line delivers higher flexibility and automation with robot technology, customized 3D-printed tools and clever packaging design. 

The advanced packaging solution delivers an output of up to 360 products per minute across two carton sizes and ten tin sizes. It also facilitates mixed formats with up to six different products.

Bijou’s president Jean-Philippe Dubois called for the automated filling of a variety of different mixed formats and special tin formats with madeleines, small pastries, biscuits and wafer rolls – individually protected by flowpacks.

“The challenge with this project was to create an automated production line from a hand-packing situation,” says Christiane Buchstab, sales account manager at Schubert.

As the project progressed, the requirements grew steadily. Initially, it was simply a matter of automating the filling process, but more and more functions were eventually added in various steps.

Robotics are increasingly prevalent in the packaging industry, but experts say there are still many areas where robots and cobots could be introduced to improve productivity and environmental sustainability.

Automation rollouts are largely being driven by labor shortages and the potential to release human workers from arduous and repetitive low-value tasks.At Bijou, the TLM machine from Schubert packs madeleines, biscuits and other baked goods at a rate of up to 360 products per minute into a wide variety of cartons and tin formats.

The automated process
After they have been baked at various locations throughout the factory, the madeleines and wafers, pastries and biscuits are collected at a central location. Unsorted and not yet correctly oriented, the sweet baked goods arrive at the packing line on six different conveyor belts, where, after being separated by vibrating conveyors, they are fed via a hopper-style buffer system.

Each of the six stations is responsible for one product and has a 2D scanner to check the orientation. If a printed logo on the flowpack points downward or the product is upside down, it is brought into the correct orientation with the help of a turning station.

In parallel, on the other side of the packing line, flat carton blanks are taken from a single-lane magazine and erected via a combination of F3 and F2 robots. Although the cartons have different formats, they feature the same base area, which greatly simplifies handling.3D-printed robot tooling is used to place the lids onto tins in an angled orientation to ensure a secure seal.

Robotic folding
The packaging also won over Bijou with its clever interior concept. Compartments, which are delivered as flat blanks similar to the carton blanks, are erected and folded robotically. They were developed jointly by Schubert’s packaging development team and Bijou’s carton manufacturer.

“With the help of a single glue point, the compartment is secured within the box. This way, the products are neatly separated from each other, and each variant is directly accessible,” explains Buchstab.

Three cartons are placed onto each Transmodul. With its inductive energy supply, the transport robot from Schubert seamlessly connects all the individual process steps.

Accommodating different formats
The Transmodul units for Bijou were designed to accommodate ten different tin formats with either a round, rectangular or square base. “This [flexibility] enables us to cover the customer’s entire variety of tins with just one format plate,” continues Buchstab.

Only the format changeover between tins and cartons requires a tool change. Two employees change format plates and gripping tools and insert the tooling for the compartment as a flat blank into the machine when the baked goods are packed into cartons.2D scanners check the packages and products for correct orientation to guarantee a reliable filling and sealing process.

When feeding the tins, a 2D scanner and an F4 robot ensure that they are always correctly oriented on the Transmodul and the lid is open before the filling process.

With Schubert’s modular solution, six four-axis pick & place robots pick up the products individually from the scanner belt and directly fill the supplied tins or cartons. The packaging is then glued or sealed.

3D-printed format parts are used to ensure that the tin lids fit securely. These are used to place the lid onto the tin in an inclined position and then close it.

In May, Schubert Additive Solutions launched an end-to-end 3D printing solution at Anuga FoodTec 2022 in Cologne, Germany. The Partbox printer is connected to a digital warehouse, allowing customers to print machinery parts at their facilities securely and in a time- and cost-effective way.

By Joshua Poole