Bosch Robotic Automation-Organic Food Packaging

ROBOTIC AUTOMATION RAISES THE BAR FOR ORGANIC FOOD PACKAGING

To meet growing consumer demand for its line of nutritious
food bars, Organic Food Bar, Corona, CA, teamed with Bosch
Packaging Technology (www.boschpackaging.com) to install
three new packaging machines selected to meet the company’s
high output demands while maintaining its stringent commitment to
sustainability and a reduced carbon footprint.
Organic Food Bar was founded in 2001 with a mission to provide
easily accessible, nutritious snack products for people on the
go. The company’s products are now carried in a number of health
food and specialty supermarkets throughout North America and
the world.
All of the ingredients in Organic Food Bars are certified organic
and kosher. The company makes and packages the bars fresh daily
and takes great pains to avoid all known food allergens. To eliminate
the possibility of contaminants, the Bosch machines had to
meet the company’s high standards for cleanliness and sanitation.
The new equipment includes: a Delfi delta robot feed placer, a
Bosch Doboy wrapper, and a Presto delta robot top loader.
After Organic Food Bar makes its line of fresh, organic food
products every morning, the bars are conveyed to the Bosch Delfi
delta robot feed placer, which is dexterous enough to delicately
handle the unwrapped bars without damaging them. The custommade
vacuum-cup end effectors can handle a range of varioussized,
fragile products. An integral vision system on the Delfi incorporates
pattern recognition to quickly locate bars with extreme
accuracy so that the robot can precisely place them at a rate of
up to 300/min into the fast-moving lug chain of the Bosch wrapper
without slowing the production flow. A color touchscreen HMI
facilitates setup and changeover with an intuitive menu.
Once placed into the wrapper infeed chain, the bars are overwrapped
by the Bosch rotary-head horizontal wrapper, designed
to maximize production uptime. The wrapper creates a complete
overwrap around the food bars, using an easily interchangeable
former, enabling fast changeovers to wrap many different sized
products. The ends of the package are then sealed and cut apart.
To meet Organic Food Bar’s stringent cleanliness requirements,
the wrapper features a solid steel plate frame and food-grade
product contact parts. Its low-backlash end-seal drive is said to
ensure dependability. Special software features reduce the chance
for food-bar jams and speed recovery if a jam does occur.
Once individually wrapped and sealed, the bars are conveyed
to the Presto delta robot top loader, which places the bars into
seven-, 10-, or 12-pack paperboard cartons for shipment. The
Presto top loader achieves high efficiency and is versatile enough
to use with a variety of products and pack patterns. The robot is
also easy to use and clean for food applications.
Since making the purchase from Bosch, Organic Food Bar has
built a brand new facility, transitioning to 100% renewable, clean,
and sustainable solar energy. The new Bosch machines are at the
heart of the production line, helping the company achieve outputs
to 300 bars/min.
Says company founder and CEO Dr. Jack J. Singh, “With the
efficiency of Bosch machines working with 100-percent clean
and renewable solar energy, we can say with pride that Organic
Food Bar is good for your body and good for our world. It’s just all
good.”