2023 + ISSUE THREE
E X P E R T
Q&A
Craig Hafner
Case Packing Innovation Takes Flight An in-depth look at how the vision for the Osprey® case packing system came to be
other components such as air cylinders, product guides, proximity switches and photo-eyes. This results in a reduction in operator effort and potential errors during changeover as well as less effort for maintenance to manage all of the various mechanism adjustments and potential failure points. A typical example of our approach is to pick several packages in series from a flat conveyor belt and then place them on the fly into a case without a need to buffer or guide the packages or manipulate the case flaps. Optimized tool design allows this approach to work effectively whether handling flexible or rigid packages.
9 VISION
CRAIG HAFNER, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, JLS ® Hafner holds over 28 years of experience in mechanical engineering and has been instrumental in conceptual system design, project management and technology planning and development at JLS since 2001.
Q:
JLS has become the standard on hygienic design. What are the main hygienic features of the Osprey?
HAFNER: By far, our biggest hygienic feature is simplicity. Any component we can eliminate from our design is one less item to clean and worry about. We aggressively push to streamline our concepts to achieve this result. We also continually review and
Q:
When was the Osprey developed and what problem were you looking to solve?
refine our design to improve the hygienic characteristics of the remaining components by paying attention to potential harborage points, surface finishes, seals, etc. Many of the design features we develop for primary product handling filter down to the Osprey and further improve its hygienic design.
HAFNER: Osprey development began in 2011. Although we had delivered case packing systems previously, they were handled as custom vision-guided robotic solutions. We wanted to develop a product line to handle a wide range of case packing applications efficiently and take advantage of reusable engineering content. Although customization is not uncommon on Ospreys, our cus-
Q:
In 2018, JLS switched its standard controls platform to B&R. What was the main motivating factor(s) to switch to this platform and what problems has that solved for your customers?
tomers still benefit from proven core design elements.
Q:
What are the main benefits of the Osprey compared to typical mechanical or even other robotic case packers?
HAFNER: Before switching to B&R controls, we were using a conventional robot and controller along with a PLC to accomplish machine control. We were starting to struggle with conveyor tracking performance, and robot CPU processing power limits along with many minor headaches. The architecture made it
HAFNER: Our robotic implementation focuses on making max-
difficult to develop an ideal user interface since much of the
imum use of robotic capabilities while minimizing the number of
data which would be helpful to display was located in the robot
