{"id":54406,"date":"2022-01-04T11:29:55","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T10:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/packaging-journal.de\/?p=54406"},"modified":"2022-01-04T11:29:55","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T10:29:55","slug":"kawasaki-robotics-westheimer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/packaging-journal.de\/en\/kawasaki-robotics-westheimer\/","title":{"rendered":"Kawasaki robot takes over bottle production in Sauerland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2017, the Westheim brewery in the Sauerland region, founded in 1862, took the first step towards automation with a Kawasaki palletising robot. Since then, the entire bottle production process has been successfully automated with additional robots - from empties management to bottle filling.<\/strong><\/p>

The Count of Stolberg's Westheim Brewery<\/a> in Marsberg (Sauerland) has been brewing regional beer specialities for the German and international market for more than 150 years. In order to assert itself in a competitive market in the long term and successfully prevent the worsening shortage of skilled labour<\/strong> a few years ago, the decision was made to gradually automate the entire production process.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Step by step: automation strategy since 2017<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Until 2017, the Westheim brewery mainly used older mechanical solutions, some of which dated back to the early 1980s. In particular the old palletising system took up a lot of space in the brewery with limited space available<\/strong> and was very susceptible to faults. For master brewer J\u00f6rg Tolzmann, this was therefore the logical first step for the Automation of the entire infrastructure<\/strong> and production. The choice quickly fell on a Kawasaki Robotics<\/a> CP500L high-performance palletising robot.<\/p>

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The Kawasaki Robotics CP500L at work (Image: Kawasaki Robotics)<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The added value of the robot system quickly became apparent: previously, the palletising system had to be lowered step by step, then the pallet was loaded manually and finally transported away - separately for full and empty crates. Now the physical strain on the responsible employee is significantly reduced and primarily drives the forklift truck<\/strong>.<\/p>

The successful installation of the palletising system was followed by the modernisation of the entire bottle production - with two additional Kawasaki BX200L robots for packing and unpacking the bottles in the centre. Their integration was also very straightforward: Because All relevant machines remained in the same place<\/strong> and the robots only need a small footprint<\/strong>only safety fences and new belt settings were necessary.<\/p>