Wepall enables JR Sabater to be autonomous in generating palletising mosaics

JR Sabater is a company from Murcia in the food sector specialising in the production and bottling of vinegars for customers worldwide, with an annual production of more than 70 million litres. The company has a large network of customers that requires it to manage a large number of case formats, heights and mosaics, generating an average of 170 pallets per day.

Wepall allows JR Sabater to be autonomous in generating palletising mosaics
In order to adapt to the particularities of each product and the frequent modifications requested by their customers, they sought an automatic palletising system that did not require the intervention of a programming expert every time they had to adapt the palletising mosaics to the requirements of the products. To meet their needs, JR Sabater installed a high-performance palletising cell that integrates a KUKA palletising robot from the QUANTEC series with a load capacity of up to 180 kg and an arm reach of up to 3,200 mm.

In order to optimise changeovers and find a more intuitive way of programming the palletising robot, software from Wepall, a robotics company specialising in the design of software for high-performance palletising, has been integrated. Wepall currently has an R&D team of more than 20 professionals and has installed more than 60 production lines around the world.

"We want to democratise robotics through the use of applications in all industries. We propose a programming solution that is independent and agnostic to the brand of robot used, giving the end customer back the ability to take control of their installations by offering them total autonomy, as they themselves can generate or modify a pallet format without external help. Anyone who knows how to use a mobile phone application is capable of creating a palletising programme with any robot model", points out Jose Sánchez Ortuño, Operations Director at Wepall.

The integration has turned out to be a complete success, as Pedro Ruíz, JR Sabater's engineering manager, acknowledges: "Thanks to Wepall's software, from the workshop itself or at the machine, in less than 10-15 minutes we are able to reprogramme the pallets and continue working normally".

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创新software offered by Wepall can be integrated into existing lines as well as new production lines. The latter type of integration is much simpler as it offers its customers a programming or line configuration standard that allows them to communicate with its palletising software. In the case of having to integrate it into a line that is already in operation, all that is required is the reprogramming of the PLC to adapt it to standardised specifications that are followed by a generated code. In this way the PLC has control of the palletising cell.

The software stands out for its ease of generating mosaics, modifying them in situ and not having to depend on an expert programmer in the specific language of each robot. The user modifies the approach distance and the desired layers, and the code is generated immediately. "Wepall has brought value to the end customer by offering ease and flexibility for employees to program their new pallet format with a KUKA robot, offering around 60% fewer production stoppages due to programming and improving line efficiency by around 10%", concludes Jose Sánchez Ortuño.

Finally, it should be noted that Wepall's software is compatible with the main brands on the market, such as FANUC industrial robots, YASKAWA robots, KUKA, ABB, Panasonic, Hyundai and Epson, among others.