Pail Palletizing

We have all seen the pallets of 5 gallon buckets lining the aisles of our favorite home center whether it is for paint, drywall pre-mixed joint compound or blacktop sealant, they are all available to the consumer for easy one stop shopping.  When you decide to pick up one of these full buckets of paint, you realize that it is really much heavier than you anticipated as you struggle to get it into your cart.  Now start to think about how these buckets get onto those pallets.  It usually involves a work force stacking pails onto a pallet at a slow painstaking speed.

In the paint manufacturing industry, those companies recognize the most difficult and time consuming part of the packaging process originates from hand palletizing of these 5 gallon pails.  This bottle neck in packaging slows down production rates and costs companies money as employee injuries increase due to the repetitive motion and heavy lifting.  The need for higher production rates and the constant increasing medical insurance premiums, have all lead companies to rethink the way they palletize their product lines.

Pro-Pal ® Pail Palletizer

Many paint manufacturing companies have started using pail palletizers to assist in their production needs.  Our Pro-Pal® Pail Palletizing machines are modular in construction.  They operate as stand-alone machines or can be placed in an existing system to include automatic pallet dispensing, top sheet or top cap placement, and full pallet accumulation.  Due to their modular design, these units can be configured to suit almost any floor layout.  The Pro-Pal® Pail is easily customizable to join existing lines and its heavy duty construction will meet the most demanding production schedule.

The Pro-Pal® Pail Low Level Palletizer offers many features which make it both versatile and dependable. By low level, we mean that the pallet remains at floor level, in front of the machine throughout the loading process.  Low noise and smooth operation, accident preventative guarding, and remarkable ease of maintenance are just a few of the many benefits of this system.

The system works by having pails being fed into the machine by conveyor and diverted into lanes.  Each pail is automatically positioned for label orientation assuring that the labels will always face out at both ends of the pallet.  Pails travel downstream and are nested into a pattern for pick-up.

Mechanical gripper heads are used to grip the individual pails.  Different quick change gripper heads and storage fixtures can be utilized to grab a variety of different product sizes.  The mechanical gripper heads are used for heavier 5 gallon pails, while vacuum gripper heads are used for smaller packages like 2 gallon pails.

The Pro-Pal Pail Palletizer accepts a wide range of pallet sizes allowing product layers to be stacked in nested patterns to solider patterns or whatever configuration you may require.  The pails are lifted and moved to the far side of the pallet, where they are gently lowered by a frequency driven gear motor.  Servo driven motors are also available that will increase speed and accuracy of the palletizer. The cycle repeats itself, placing additional pails on the near side of the pallet and is continued until the required number of layers has been completed. 

Pro-Pal ® Pail Palletizer
Utilizing a Robotic Arm

The completed pallet is then transported to the pallet conveyor where it is either removed by a fork lift truck operator, or continues to an automatic stretch wrapper.  An empty pallet is automatically dispensed by the pallet magazine and is held by pallet stops in the load position to accept new layers of pails.  Under normal operating conditions, the Pro-Pal® Pail series palletizers operate on demand and require only casual operator attention.

The Pro-Pal® Pail Palletizer is a versatile machine that can be easily customizable to your production needs.  This palletizer can be integrated into a robotic arm system for greater precision and higher production rates.

 

As manufacturers continue to make efforts to streamline their packaging process, and as employee safety and tight time constraints shape productivity, the Pro-Pal® Pail Palletizer offers several time and cost saving benefits.

To learn more about the Pro-Pal® Pail Palletizer visit our website at www.arrowheadsystems.com.