This disclosure relates to retail-ready packaging, and in particular, to filling retail-ready packages with pouched products.
In the early days of retailing, a retailer would receive a large box of goods from a manufacturer. Inside the box were retail units of some product. The retailer would then perform an operation called “restocking the shelves.” This would involve taking the individual retail units from the box and placing them neatly on the shelves to create an attractive display. The box, however, would remain in a back room, invisible to retail customers.
One difficulty with this system is an obvious one. It is tedious to restock the shelves one retail unit at a time.
Another, more pernicious, difficulty arises from the fact that the mere presence of a retail unit on the shelf, particularly one with an eye-catching design, calls attention to itself and stimulates sales. As more people buy, the number of units decreases, and hence the commercial impression of the retail units decreases. This creates a negative feedback loop in which as the rate of sales of retail units increases, the commercial impression created by the aggregate of retail units decreases.
In modern retailing, a retailer again receives a large box of goods from a manufacturer. However, inside the box are several smaller cartons, often called “retail-ready packages.” These cartons typically have an attractive design printed on them, and a perforation that can be torn away to reveal the individual retail units available for purchase. To re-stock shelves, the retailer simply tears the carton carefully at the perforation and places the entire carton on the shelf. This simplifies re-stocking considerably, since it is no longer necessary to carefully arrange the retail units on a shelf. In addition, even if all retail units have been sold, the carton remains and continues to create a commercial impression.
A difficulty in retail-ready packaging is that the retail units must be placed in the carton in a neat and attractive way.
Certain kinds of retail units are rigid and have a well-defined size and shape. Examples are boxes, cans, bottles, shrink-wrapped items, such as diapers or paper towels, cartons, such as milk cartons, and plastic containers, such as those used for yogurt. For these retail units, it is known to use a robot to pick individual retail units off a conveyor and place them in a retail-ready carton.
However, there is one common type of retail unit that lacks these properties: the pouch. Pouches, such as those used to package chips and nuts, are deformable, and tend not to have a uniform shape. This causes great difficulty for robots. As a result, it is not uncommon to fill retail-ready cartons by hand.
In one aspect, the invention features an apparatus for placing pouches in retail-ready cartons. Such an apparatus includes a pouch placer including an elevator assembly having paddles for receiving pouches provided by a first conveyor, and lifting the pouches, and a first robot arm for retrieving a pouch from a paddle of the elevator assembly and placing the pouch in a retail-ready carton.
Embodiments of the invention include those that further include a weight-measurement device for weighing a pouch while the pouch is being moved. These include embodiments in which the weight measurement device is integrated with the first robot arm, as well as embodiments in which the weight-measurement device is integrated into a second robot arm that causes pouches to be provided to the pouch packaging machine.
In some embodiments, the effector includes a clamp having first and second grippers having faces opposed to each other for gripping a pouch, wherein the second gripper includes a spatula for supporting the pouch. Among these are embodiments that include including a vacuum source, wherein the spatula includes a surface having holes in communication with the vacuum source.
Also among the embodiments of the invention are those that further include a pouch filling machine for providing filled pouches to the pouch placement machine and those that include an erection machine for erecting retail-ready cartons for receiving the pouches, and a second conveyor for conveying the erected cartons to the second robot arm.
In some embodiments, the elevator assembly includes a first elevator tower, and a chain for conveying paddles up a vertical section of the first elevator tower. Among these are embodiments in which the vertical section faces a first conveyor belt that delivers filled pouches, embodiments in which the first tower leans away from a conveyor belt that delivers filled pouches to the pouch placer, and embodiments that include a second elevator tower and a chain conveying paddles up a vertical section of the second elevator tower, wherein the vertical section of the second tower faces the vertical section of the first tower.
These and other features of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description and its accompanying figures, in which
A pouch packaging system 10, shown in
The pouch filler 12 receives a supply of webbing 16 and product 18. Its function is to form the webbing 16 into pouches 20, to place a measure of product 18 into each pouch 20, seal the pouch 20, which is now a filled pouch, and to present each such filled pouch 20 to a first robot arm 22 controlled by a control system 24. The first robot arm 22 places filled pouches 20 on a first conveyor belt 26, which then conveys the filled pouches 20 to the pouch placer 14.
The pouch placer 14 receives, as inputs, the filled pouches 20 from the pouch filler 12, and a supply of retail-ready cartons 28. The function of the pouch placer 14 is to erect these retail-ready cartons 28, receive pouches 20 from the pouch filler 12, and place these pouches 20 into the erected retail-ready cartons 28.
Referring now to
Referring now to
The second tower 32B is a mirror image of the first tower 32A in both structure and operation. Like the first tower 32A, the second tower 32B has a vertically oriented conveyor chain 34B that travels up an inner vertical section 36B of the second tower 32B, loops around an upper turnaround section 38B of the second tower 32B, travels down an outer vertical section 40B of the second tower 32B, and loops around a lower turnaround section 42B of the second tower 32B to begin its journey back up the inner vertical section 36B.
The second tower 32B is oriented such that the inner vertical section 36A of the first tower 32A faces an inner vertical section 36B of the second tower 32B.
Each conveyor chain 34A, 34B has, mounted thereon, regularly spaced clips 35A, 35B. Each clip 35A, 35B engages a paddle 44A, 44B that extends outwardly from the conveyor chain 34A, 34B in a direction perpendicular to the conveyor chain 34A, 34B. As the conveyor chain 34A, 34B moves, so too does each paddle 44A, 44B
Movement of the paddles 44A of the first tower 32A and the paddles 44B second tower 32B is synchronized in both frequency and phase such that as a first paddle 44A from the first tower 32A traverses the inner vertical section 36A of the first tower 32A, a corresponding second paddle 44B also traverses the inner vertical section 36B of the second tower 32B at the same time. The first tower 32A and second tower 32B are separated such that a small gap exists between the first paddle 44A and the second paddle 44B.
The first paddle 44A and the second paddle 44B thus come together at a bottom end of their respective inner vertical sections 36A, 36B and cooperate to form a support surface for lifting a pouch 20 upwards, between the first and second towers 32A, 32B, for presentation to a second robot arm 46. Once the second robot arm 46 picks up the pouch 20, the first and second paddles 44A, 44B begin to move apart as each one traverses the upper turnaround section 38A, 38B of its corresponding tower 32A, 32B.
Referring back to
In general, it is difficult to impart exactly the correct velocity to a pouch 20 so as to have it come to rest at a desired position on the first and second paddles 44A, 44B. To avoid having to do so, a backstop 48 is placed behind the paddles 44A, 44B, as shown in
In some embodiments, the backstop 48 may not be vertical relative to the paddles 44A, 44B as the paddles 44A, 44B travel up the inner vertical sections 36A, 36B of their respective towers. Instead, the backstop 48 may be oriented to lean toward the first conveyor belt 26 and to extend upward at least part way along the inner vertical section 36A, 36B, as shown in
In another embodiment, shown in
Another embodiment, shown in
As was the case in the preceding embodiment, which had twin towers 32A, 32B, the sole tower 32A in the single-tower embodiment can also be made to lean away from the first conveyor belt 26, thus enabling gravity to urge the pouch 20 to remain in the paddle 44A.
Referring to
To avoid this difficulty, it may be useful for a lower one of the two grippers 60B to have a spatula 62 extending therefrom. When a clamp having such a spatula lifts the pouch 20 off a paddle, the spatula 62 supports the pouch 20 and assists in guiding the pouch 20 to its proper position in the retail-ready carton 28.
In another embodiment, the spatula 62 includes holes 64 connected to a vacuum source 66. In this embodiment, as the second robot arm 46 lifts the pouch 20 off the paddle 44A, the vacuum source 66 turns on and causes a vacuum that secures the pouch 20 to the spatula 62. Then, when the second robot arm 46 places the pouch 20 in its proper place in the retail-ready carton 28, the vacuum source 66 either turns off or reverses itself to gently blow the pouch 20 off of the spatula 62.
In some cases, a pouch 20 is incorrectly filled, for example by having too much or too little product 18 placed therein. These pouches 20 are preferably rejected. To address this, it is useful to provide one of the first and second robot arms 22, 46 with an accelerometer 72. Since the overall force applied to the robot arm 22, 46 is known, measurements of the arm's acceleration provide a basis for inferring the pouch's weight. Based on data from this accelerometer 72, the control system 24 determines whether the pouch 20 should be placed on the first conveyor belt 26 or on a third conveyor belt 74, which takes pouches 20 to a reject pile.
An advantage of the apparatus described herein is the ease with the elevator assembly 30 and the second robot arm 46 can be adapted to accommodate different pouches 20.
The first and second towers 32A, 32B are mounted to and horizontally movable along a horizontal guide 76. The towers 32A, 32B are spaced apart by a distance that corresponds to a linear dimension of the pouch 20. Since the pouch placer 14 is intended to work with different size pouches 20, the variable spacing between the towers 32A, 32B provides adjustment for different size pouches 20.
In addition, it is a simple matter to detach the paddles 44A, 44B from the clips 35A, 35B on the conveyor chain 34A, 34B and to attach different paddles having different dimensions, which can then accommodate different size pouches 20. Finally, the backstop 48 can be adjusted, for example by changing the number of vertical rods or bars 50A, 50B and their positions in a manner that is optimized for the dimensions of a particular pouch 20.
Customizability of the second robot arm 46 arises from its interchangeable effector 56. Effectors 56 can vary in the dimensions of the grippers 60A, 60B, in the texture of the gripping surface of the grippers 60A, 60B, in the presence or absence of a spatula 62, and in the presence or absence of a vacuum source 66, and in the size and configuration of the holes 64.