Improved control strategy for a robotic palletiser

For efficient and higher productivity it is vital that along with the smart production processes the packaging and materials handling processes become faster, more reliable, and operator friendly. This paper presents an upgrade of a control strategy for a large and complex industrial robotic palletiser intended to reduce downtime during palletiser breakdown by allowing faster fault tracking and resolution in the event of a breakdown. The recently modified control strategy has dramatically reduced the palletiser down times by virtue of reduced control complexity and better status feedback that allows maintenance personnel to restore palletiser function faster than was previously possible. This in turn resulted in improved palletiser availability and reliability. Ultimately, it has substantially improved the maintainability to debug and restore palletiser operation, which is extremely beneficial for situations when operator concentration is not at its best, such as during a night shift.