UNRIVALED ROBOTIC CARTONING

The patent-pending Peregrine® from JLS® offers complete flexibility and near instant changeovers in a small footprint.

JLS® is helping food manufacturers solve packaging challenges while increasing the speed of cartoning operations with a robotic, vision-guided system. Aligned with the rest of JLS’ product portfolio, the Peregrine® cartoner offers a small footprint while eliminating conveyor transitions and providing near instant changeover with the vision-guided flexibility and hygienic design that JLS is known for.

5 Benefits of Robotic Cartoners

That Give a Winning-Edge Over Mechanical Solutions

Small Footprint

Peregrine® maintains high speeds and offers the ultimate flexibility—all in a small, hygienic, easy-to-use package. Peregrine places carton forming and closing inline so there’s no wasted real estate. In fact, the Peregrine has dramatically reduced the footprint of the overall cartoning system and eliminates problematic handoffs from conveyor to conveyor by as much as two-thirds.

No Conveyor Transitions

The Peregrine’s high-speed JLS TRAK™ eliminates the need for any other conveyors to move cartons away from the former, to accumulate, or manage the loading process. The need for perpendicular transfers and additional conveyors are eliminated. Cartons are kept inline, without turns—from forming and loading, all the way to closing.

Near Instant Changeover

Changing from one carton size to another or changing products carton-to-carton is as easy as a simple push of a button on the Peregrine. The cartoning solution allows automatic changeover in seconds by selecting a setting on the HMI. Unlike other solutions that have potential downtime issues, Peregrine is completely flexible and adaptable thanks in part to its visionguided technology.

VISION-GUIDED FLEXIBILITY

The Peregrine uses vision-guided robotics for the ultimate flexibility when placing naked or packaged products into cartons. Thermoformed pouches, flow-wrapped packages, flexible bags and more are no match for the system, which can handle products of different shapes and sizes on the fly without any downtime versus more complex mechanical solutions or manual options that require stop-and-go production.

W“e are a high-sanitary design OEM, so we take pride that the Peregrine® follows that same design philosophy,” said Gary Pickett, Director of Business Development, JLS Automation. “Typically, the applications are secondary packaging but the challenge is that these machines are often in the same room as the primary packaging machines. The Peregrine needs to be able to withstand that environment because it will most likely get wet.”

The Peregrine features the same sanitary design as its other machines, including angled surfaces that shed water and eliminate any pooling. Plus, with JLS’ sanitary Vacuum On Board technology, sanitation is as simple as an end-of-arm tool change over. Cleaning can take place offline due to the quick change nature of the tooling. This makes it ideal for a wide variety of applications, including baked goods and frozen foods where sanitation is every thing.

Small And Mighty

This versatile cartoner offers the highest sanitary standards all in a small print that is one-third the size of traditional top- and end-load cartoners. Peregrine places carton forming, loading and closing inline so there’s no wasted real estate, saving food producers valuable floor space.

The Peregrine’s high-speed JLS TRAK™ and positive carton transport (PCT™) system eliminate problematic handoffs and the need for any other conveyors to move cartons away from the former, to accumulate, or manage the loading process. Cartons are kept in-line, without turns—from forming to loading, all the way to closing.“The traditional way of doing that is to place the carton former and carton loader far away from each other be tween the conveyors. With the Peregrine, we’ve eliminated that issue and no additional conveyors are needed to transport the open carton to the next closing machine,” said Pickett. Instead, a servo carton removal (SCR) system removes the carton from the forming machine and places it into the track system. The two-axis, servo-con trolled system positively grips the carton and moves it vertically down into position on the track.

Fast And Flexible

Sanitation

Given that secondary packaging solutions are often found in areas where there is moisture, the Peregrine cartoning solution from JLS is designed to get wet, shed water and eliminate any pooling. And with proprietary, sanitary Vacuum On Board technology, sanitation is as simple as an end-of-arm tool changeover.

The JLS TRAK is also what gives the Peregrine complete flexibility when it comes to size change. Changing from one carton size to another or changing products carton-to-carton is as easy as a simple push of a button on the HMI. Automatic changeover happens in sec onds by selecting a pre-programmed recipe. Unlike other solutions that have potential downtime issues, the Peregrine is completely flexible and adapt- able thanks in part to its vision- guided, robotic technology. The advantage of the vision-guided system, according to Pickett, is that with a collate and load system the product has to be in a specific orientation and location as it enters the cartoning machine. If a product isn’t positioned correctly, it will jam and cause the machine to stop. With vision guidance, no collating system is needed and products can come into the system in any orientation.

The vision-guided robot and place it into the carton. it at very high speeds and we can have extremely accurate positioning of the carton throughout the system,” said Pickett. “That’s the advantage of the JLS TRAK system—it achieves accuracy, speed and flexibility in one system because when we open and close the carriers independently, we can change that for a specific carton size.”

The JLS TRAK system takes it from there, fully controlling the carton all the way through closing. Made of linear servo motors, independent carriers ride along the track to move cartons in place. Each carrier opens to accept the carton and also adjusts for carton size and the space needed to move each carton regardless of size to loading and closing. According to Pickett, the JLS TRAK helps enable near instant changeover and flexibility at high speeds when combined with the Peregrine’s PCT system.

Once loaded, cartons are then closed by a second vision-guided robot where they are then sent downstream. Together, the JLS SCR system, JLS TRAK, vision-guided robotic technology and robotic closing achieve high-speed, flexible carton forming, loading and closing—all in a small footprint.