At the end of 2006 Veltins, the German brewery well known for its innovative spirit and variety of high quality products, bought from Sidel six single-column robots to carry out the following operations in its returnable glass bottling line (60,000 bph for 0.33 cl bottles):

• 2 robots for palletizing
• 2 robots for depalletizing
• 1 robot for crating loose bottles and multipacks, i.e. cardboard packs containing 6 (3x2) bottles
• 1 robot for decrating

The six robots will be delivered by May 2007 and the line start-up is scheduled for beginning of August.

Veltins: already a Sidel customer

Veltins is well acquainted with Sidel products. It has already acquired conveyors (for pallets, bottles and crates) for its previous lines, while in June 2005 the German company bought a highly sophisticated sorting system, designed according to the innovative concept of selecting the bottles returned from the market to optimize production, and, in February 2006, a Simonazzi traditional depalletizer for a non-returnable glass bottling line (45,000 bph for 0.5 l. bottles)

The single-column robot: main features and benefits

- Automatic machine with three controlled axes (up/down, column rotation, and wrist rotation) to carry out palletizing/depalletizing and crating/decrating operations for high-speed lines

- Machine adapted for various applications and with easy access to all sides

- Advantages compared to traditional palletizing and crating machines:

• less floor space, which means simpler integration in line production, easier format changeovers, better machine access
• greater precision in controlling movements thanks to servomotors
• less costly and more suitable for performing palletizing/depalletizing and crating/decrating operations

- Payload: 700 kg

- Pallet size: 1200 x 800 cm

- Layer per minutes: 7.5