Te.Co., Diamond Partner Datalogic, a reference point for the whole of Italy, collaborates with the system integrator Altesia, with which it has engineered the integrated VISION-PALLET system supplied to an international player in the food sector, meat processing.
Te.Co. has always been at the side of OEMs, system integrators, panel operators and cable technicians for the development of customised and innovative solutions for the industrial automation market.
Today we tell you about a success story that saw our Product Managers starring together with our partner Datalogic and Altesia, a company that has dedicated itself to software development, in responding to the specific application needs posed by the customer, end user in the meat processing market:
- certify the pallet sent to the customer, with the timely detection of the individual packages in the last wrapping phase with film
- detect, in a preventive way, any palletising errors due to incorrect packages or joining of incorrect pallets
- trace and retrace (for a posteriori analysis) the individual packages referring to the orders
- calculate in real time the KPIs of the palletising and loading area on trucks.
The aim was to develop an integrated vision system for the detection of packages on the pallet, verifying and certifying their contents. The specificity was that this detection had to be made during the rotation movement in the final phase of pallet preparation: film wrapping.
The end customer, a leading player in the food market, has also identified in this case very clear constraints that have become a guide for us to come up with the best solution for our customer’s system integrator. In particular, the vision system had to:
- have reduced overall dimensions and have robustness requirements, given the area with high operating flow; it was therefore opted for the development of a casing with minimum overall dimensions and anchored to the ground with an adjustable plate in rotation;
- be suitable for different industrial areas and in particular for the food sector, therefore for the structure, and all its components, 304 Stainless Steel was used;
- be integrated into customer wrapping systems; then a module has been inserted to manage the interface with the external wrapping machine;
- be operational in wide temperature ranges and in particular 0°-5°. It follows that all the components used were suitable to work at these temperatures
On the other hand, it was essential that the vision system did not add activities or management times, which could have affected the overall optimisation of order fulfilment. Therefore, it was decided to take advantage of the initial rotary movement of the winding activity.
The optimal solution was agreed with our partner Datalogic who supported us in the initial analysis phase and then during laboratory tests and prototyping. The choice of the specific scanner model to be used fell on the MATRIX-320 image-based ID Scanner with Liquid Lens – for more details on the specific component read our article.
The end result was an integrated system that brought countless benefits:
- the optimisation of order fulfilment times, thanks to the automatic check of individual packages on the pallet;
- the reduction of disputes by customers, increasing the level of service;
- the traceability of the punctual boxes sent with the certification of the reading during film wrapping;
- automatic detection of the overlap of several “small” pallets on a single pallet loaded on the TIR;
- the printing of the shipping label according to the Indicod-ECR standard to be affixed on the pallet.
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