April 2020

FOOD AND BEVERAGE n Possibly the safest brewery in the world? B y installing cobots (collaborative robots) at its factory in the Danish town of Fredericia, the brewer Carlsberg says it has improved staff safety and is now moving towards achieving zero accidents at the site. Before the cobots were installed, incidents were common on the factory floor.“Although our production line was highly automated, it still required some degree of human input,” explains Thomas Kern Ruby, senior project manager at the Carlsberg Fredericia site.“This was mainly during the packaging process which saw our workforce manually carrying packaging cartons from the pallet to the magazine. This was a monotonous and strenuous task and often staff endured repetitive strain or sustained severe cuts while removing the packaging cable.” To overcome these safety problems, the company invested in two cobots – Universal Robots UR3 and UR10 models. It is using the 10kg payload-capacity UR10 to pick up a stack of 10 cartons tied together with packaging cable. The smaller UR3 is then used to cut and dispose of the cable, while the larger machine places the stack in a magazine. Working in tandem, the cobots can handle up to 500 packaging cartons per hour, allowing Carlsberg Fredericia to upskill its workforce to focus on high-priority tasks such as quality control and line maintenance. “This process previously accounted for 60% of one employee’s workload,”Ruby continues. “Today, this stage only requires one operator to drive a pallet of cardboard boxes onto the line and oversee the process. The UR10 and UR3 quite literally do all the rest. “This frees up our team to focus of more demanding tasks that improves their job satisfaction and crucially, keeps them safe,” he adds. “This has helped us realise our goal and achieve a zero accidents culture, a key part of our sustainability programme, Together Towards Zero.” Following the success of the first two cobots, the company has bought four more to further automate its production lines, including handling lids during the bottling process. According to Ruby, this has is already delivering substantial improvements in production efficiency. n The brewer Carlsberg has turned to collaborative robots to help improve safety at one of its plants in Denmark. It is aiming to achieve zero accidents at the site. ® www.acorn-ind.co.uk T: 0800 8766 441 E: enquiries@acorn-ind.co.uk PROACTIVE FOOD SAFETY prevent the harbouring and ingress of bacteria with SKF Food Line Square 4-bolt Flanged Unit Pillow Block Unit Oval 2-bolt Flanged Unit Your authorised SKF distributor Carslberg’s two cobots work together to handle up to 500 packaging cartons per hour