Foodmach innovation stacks up

Innovation is crucial to long-term success in the manufacturing sector. It enables companies to offer unique solutions and stand out in the marketplace, while at the same time providing the continual improvements in productivity demanded by manufacturers.

One company with a focus on integrating innovation into its products is packaging solutions provider, Foodmach Australia. Serving industry for over 30 years, the company today provides a range of robotic and automated packaging solutions. These solutions are continually evolving, fuelled by industry’s ceaseless drive for faster, more efficient manufacturing solutions. For Foodmach Australia, ongoing innovation is a necessity.

Foodmach Australia recently combined two of its automated packaging solutions to create a unique hybrid palletising machine — the Robomatrix Hybrid. The new system combines features of Foodmach Australia’s Robomatrix series of high-speed pattern-forming palletising solutions, along with elements of the company’s S3000 floor-level case-palletising system. Almost all of the Robomatrix Hybrid’s motion processes rely on SEW-Eurodrive electronic drive control technology, as well as SEW-Eurodrive standard and servo gear motors. The result is a fast and efficient single-level palletising machine, adaptable to nearly anything that comes off a production line in a package.

Foodmach’s Robomatrix Hybrid features the latest in materials handling systems, underpinned by precision automation and advanced robotic and drive technologies. Its robotic arm manipulates and orients finished packaged product into pallet layers. Each pallet layer is then hoisted and stacked from the ground up to form a pallet.

With the Robomatrix Hybrid requiring a range of motor and drive capabilities — from simple conveying to pin-point positioning — Foodmach opted for the Movidrive ‘B’ application inverter from SEW-Eurodrive, an inverter module that could be used across the board to meet each requirement.

Each of the Robomatrix Hybrid system’s 12 SEW-Eurodrive motors, whether servo or standard, is combined with the Movidrive ‘B’ application inverter. “The Movidrive ‘B’ provides users with a valuable combination of versatility and processing power for both standard variable speed drives and sophisticated positioning and synchronous applications,” said SEW-Eurodrive applications engineer, John Gattellari. “It was this combination that allowed Foodmach to deploy the Movidrive ‘B’ across the various servo and standard motor drive applications on the Robomatrix Hybrid. It was just a matter of which encoder card and application module we used.”

According to Ken Orr, Foodmach Australia software engineer, the preprogrammed application module libraries were a key feature of the Movidrive ‘B’. “We utilised the application modules extensively,” he said. “Ten of the 12 drives used in the hybrid Robomatrix palletiser employ preprogrammed application modules. For instance, we used a sensor-based positioning module at the in-feed servo motors and then a different extended positioning module for the squaring plates and servo gripper head. Basically, it saves an enormous amount of programming. It’s just a matter of picking the right application, putting the correct parameters in and you’re up and going.”

For Foodmach Australia, capitalising on this flexibility translates into savings in time and cost. “If we have to do the positioning programming on a PLC, we could spend two or three days attempting to program that during commissioning on site,” said Orr. “Using the application modules that came with the drive, it’s programmed in the workshop and ready to go. For an experienced person it may be a matter of one hour. That makes all the difference when it comes down to budget.”

With application modules helping to handle positioning and conveying tasks, site installation was further simplified with the integrated safety feature of the Movidrive ‘B’. “From an electrical engineering point of view, the hybrid Robomatrix palletiser was designed and built from scratch,” said Orr. “That meant we were able to use the integrated safety features that were built into the drive. In the past, we had enormous three-phase contactors dropping the power supply to the drive. Now we only have to drop off a 24 V supply to the drive and it’s Cat-3 safety rated.”

The completion of the new Robomatrix Hybrid palletising machine has seen Foodmach Australia expand its extensive range of innovative packaging machinery. With the support of SEW-Eurodrive, Foodmach Australia will continue to integrate innovation into its customised packaging technologies and provide Australian industry with faster, more efficient manufacturing solutions.

SEW-Eurodrive
www.sew-eurodrive.com.au
www.sew-eurodrive.co.nz

Foodmach Pty Ltd
www.foodmach.com.au