The challenge
A market-leading manufacturer of dairy products in Laverton ran six packaging lines, each needing an operator to hand-stack cartons — 40 boxes per minute across six pallets simultaneously. With 95+ SKUs, random box orientation and cartons from 1.2kg to 15kg, off-the-shelf palletisers didn't fit, and the repetitive lifting posed constant injury risk.
The solution
We designed and delivered a complete multi-line palletising system: three UR20 collaborative robots on Robotiq PE20 palletising bases, fed by upstream barcode detection that identifies each SKU and diverts it to the correct transfer conveyor. Smart pick logic double-picks light cartons (under 20kg combined) and single-picks heavy ones, with recipe-driven pallet patterns managed from a Robotiq HMI.
Everything was delivered in-house — cell engineering, custom transfer conveyors, electrical installation, controls integration and safety validation — in a four-month program staged around live production.
The results
- Manual palletising eliminated: six operators per shift down to one
- Continuous palletising across three shifts a day
- 95+ SKUs handled automatically with barcode-driven routing
- Four site "system champions" trained in robot and PLC programming — the client owns their system