Automatic labeling: easier, faster, more reliable
The "K-Label labeling system", a combination of industrial robot and label print and apply system, speeds up logistics processes at sanitary ware manufacturer GROHE.
It relieves the burden on employees and helps to cope with continuous growth. It was produced in cooperation between Kawasaki Robotics and labeling specialist REA LABEL ES.
With an elegant swing, the robot arm picks up a label and applies it to the pallet - a short, precise movement and the arm returns to its starting position. Then it's the forklift driver's turn. He takes the pallet from the roller conveyor with the forklift truck and maneuvers it directly onto the loading area of the truck provided in the tightest of spaces.
the logistics employee and his colleagues send 200 to 250 pallets of sanitary installation systems on their way each shift. 52 trucks a day bring washbasins, urinals or concealed elements for WC flushing from the GROHE factory premises to the distribution center. From there, they are shipped all over the world. GROHE is one of the world's leading suppliers of sanitary fittings. The plant in Porta Westfalica with 475 employees is one of three production sites in Germany - around 1.6 million installation systems and around 2 million actuator plates are produced there every year. In the past, however, it took much longer for a truck to be loaded and roll out of the yard, as the last activity in the production hall was manual work. And therefore laborious, time-consuming - and above all error-prone.
Just a few months ago, for every pallet that was to leave the plant wrapped in shrink-wrap and marked, the forklift drivers got off the vehicle, printed out the delivery bill, attached it and sat back down - only then could they pick up the pallet on the fork and take it to the truck. "Not only was this stressful for the employees, the delivery bills were often incorrect, with transposed numbers or not readable at all," says Wilhelm Braun, Production Manager at the GROHE plant. "And with this approach, we would no longer have been able to cope with our continuous double-digit percentage growth in recent years."
Braun was looking for a solution that would do equal justice to people and growth. "In terms of preventative health management, we wanted to improve the ergonomics for our employees. But because it is very cramped in the hall, we needed a system that was particularly compact and space-saving, but also very flexible so that we could label pallets of different sizes," he prints his demanding expectations. "In a brochure from REA and Kawasaki, I found exactly what we had always been looking for." That was his first contact with the K-Label labeling system. Two globally active, well-known companies developed the system for automatic labeling: Kawasaki Robotics, experts in industrial robots, and REA LABEL, specialists in industrial labeling systems for marking a wide variety of products and surfaces with labels.
Two of these K-Label systems are now working in GROHE's production hall - as integrated system components of the two production lines. What today appears playfully easy is the result of an individual customization process for which REA, Kawasaki and GROHE worked closely together. This also included a meeting at the REA production site in Halle/Westphalia. This is because the two systems - including the safety fences in accordance with the EU Machinery Directive - were completely assembled, installed and approved by GROHE in advance. The installation at the plant in Porta Westfalica was then able to proceed all the faster and without unnecessary downtime due to the necessary fine-tuning.
The labeling system communicates via interfaces with the existing conveyor technology and the factory's warehouse management system - making it a smoothly running unit. "The two labeling systems are simply there and always work - they are among the machines in the plant that I hear the least about," says Production Manager Braun "enthusiastically". Remote maintenance and online troubleshooting in cooperation with the REA LABEL experts have been prepared, tested and are therefore possible, but neither has yet been needed at GROHE.
The conveyor system tells the labeling system whether a pallet is ready. "We can track each individual pallet and know exactly which one is where at all times," explains REA plant manager Wolfgang Rehschuh. An ultrasonic sensor at the infeed of the marking cell determines the height of the pallet to be marked and communicates this to the system. "If one is not full, the system doesn't care," explains Braun. "It reliably processes different pallet heights, recognizes the actual height and sticks the delivery bill label exactly where it should be." The robot currently applies the label to the backside - but it could also do this at any other point or even on the top. It would also be possible to apply two labels to different sides of the pallet at the same time. GROHE is therefore equipped for future requirements.
The GROHE warehouse management system sends the data for the respective delivery bill to the labeling system. This takes place four places before the actual labeling process so that the system can initiate the printing process in good time. The label design was developed by GROHE itself. "We were the first location in the Grohe Group to change our delivery bills from the usual A4 format to A6," explains Production Manager Braun. "This makes us the first example of best practice in the network - and we want to be a role model for other sites that have already become aware of our solution." According to Braun, this solution has relieved GROHE's logistics staff by 38 percent and significantly increased their work and movement safety, as they can now control everything from the forklift truck. As a result, many more of GROHE's 6,000 employees worldwide, 2,400 of whom work in Germany, could benefit from the solution.
With a quiet hiss, the REA LABEL DS print and apply system produces a delivery bill label with the integrated thermal transfer label printer. The robot arm picks it up using a vacuum plate and then transports it to the waiting pallet with an elegant, dancing turn in order to place it on the pallet. With a turn that almost looks like a break dance, the robot uses the very limited space available at GROHE and applies the label from the REA LABEL DS to the precisely defined position on the pallet.
The label pick-up plate of the robot arm can not only generate a vacuum for transporting the label, it is also equipped with a spring base and sensors. This allows the robot to "feel" when the label has been placed on the shrink film of the pallet - and can perform this task correctly even on sloping surfaces. As soon as the label has been successfully applied from the plate, information is sent to the system, which then activates the scanner on the robot arm. A short, red flash of light - and the delivery bill is verified for correctness and readability. Production Manager Braun comments on the advantages compared to manual handling: "We have significantly reduced our error rate and we know that everything that goes out can also be checked: Everything that goes out can also be collected at the destination because the labels are stuck on correctly and are legible." The easily removable adhesive for the delivery bills was also important, as the GROHE sales center has to be able to remove them without leaving any residue and replace them with customer-oriented delivery bills.
A security fence encloses the entire coding and marking system, which is also integrated into the cross-divisional security system. If an unauthorized person enters the labelling area without the required permissions, the activated safety sensors stop the entire system.
If the growth of recent years at the GROHE plant continues, production manager Braun is confident that another REA LABEL labeling system will then be integrated into the logistics system.
