OCME showcase new innovations for their palletising systems

OCME S.r.l. from Parma Italy, a world leader in packaging, filling, handling and palletising systems for the consumer products industry, have recently showcased a range of innovative improvements to their range of palletising systems, at their recent Open House, held in late February 2011 at their Parma premises.

On display was a system that had been designed for a major brewery. It had a robot island composed of two anthropomorphic robotic manipulators that were programmed to create specific palletising patterns, a robot with a layer-forming head and a pick and place robot for pallets / layer pads equipped with self alignment. The demonstration included cluster packs, mid-cone packs of standard and sleek cans, shrink wrapped cans and tray formed packs of glass bottles – displaying speeds of 180 – 200 packs per minute on the mi-cone cluster packs.

The pack infeed was fitted with a double modular conveyor belt to control infeed pressure.

The manipulator gripper head was fitted with brushless motors along with pneumatic commands, to achieve optimum precision and maximum speed. The layer gripping head had special enhancements that are currently awaiting a patent. These included:-

*  4 side rails to compact the layer, fitted with an inflatable inner profile which reduces pressure and this avoids damage to the packs.

*  2 independent blades, controlled by brushless motors for complex palletising patterns and to maintain the correct pressure during transfer.

*  4 extractor assemblies to facilitate release of the layer and to limit the effects of friction.