While robots are no strangers to the wholesale baking industry, explosive growth has occurred during the last five years as their costs continue to fall and the number of jobs they can perform grows. Robots and their attendant hardware and software — the robotics that can automate so much of a baking facility — are now gaining a definitive foothold with wholesale bakers.

Benda Manufacturing Inc., Tinley Park, Ill., formerly responded to only one or two queries about robotics applications for wholesale bakers each year. Now, potential customers call weekly asking how robotics can help automate their operations, says Terry Benda, president of the food-handling systems company. “Robotics are booming,” he says. “Within the last five years, I've started seeing them in larger roles where they're replacing operators.”

Many more wholesale bakers are considering robotics implementation because the automation technology's costs have dropped by at least 50 percent in the past decade, says Rick Hoskins, vice president of operations, Colborne Corp., Lake Forest, Ill. Colborne produces automation equipment for the baking industry.

Why the steep price slash? Simple economies of scale, says Charles Gale manager, automation sales, Weldon Solutions, York, Pa., a systems integrator and robotics provider. “More people are buying them, so we can make them cheaper,” Gale says.

Today's robotics applications also are easier to maintain than in years past as robotics makers take advantage of ever-advancing technological innovation, Gale says. Advances also mean robots now perform faster than older models and can keep up with high line speeds.

These new robots can offer cost reductions to bakers in a number of ways. “In almost all cases, the large portion of value is in labor reduction,” Hoskins says. “However, in many cases there are other automation or mechanical machines available to automate the same basic tasks. In these cases, the value of robotics is typically reliability because you have fewer moving parts and more flexibility, and because robots are easily programmed, which makes it easier to adapt to different products or characteristics,” he adds. “The changeover is much faster as well.”

New on the line

Northeast Foods, Baltimore, turned to robotics four years ago for line balancing and found significant cost savings via labor reductions and reduced machine-operation costs. The bakery, which supplies buns to more than 500 McDonald's restaurants, was no stranger to automation. Much of its plant operations had already been automated before executives turned their attention to the conveyor. Prior to introducing robotics, two employees were responsible for final inspection and line balancing.

Though the employees did their jobs with accuracy and precision, Northeast Foods decision makers realized the repetitive job and the challenges of inspecting and balancing 5,000 dozen buns per hour meant new employees wouldn't exactly be keen on steping into the role when the present inspectors moved on.

They turned to two FlexPicker robots from industrial robot maker ABB Robotics, New Berlin, Wis. Northeast's new robotics system includes a vision camera trained on all six lines in the plant. Software tied to the camera sends detailed information to the robots about gaps coming down the line. The software instructs the robot to move buns from full lanes to empty lanes to achieve a balanced flow of product.

“Since we began running the line in July 2004, equipment downtime has been minimal. The robot requires very little maintenance aside from replacing the rubber suction cups that pick up the buns,” says a Northeast Foods' representative. The suction cups need to be replaced every three to four days because of the high-speed production.

The robots do their work as the conveyor moves 120-ft.-per-minute. Northeast Foods worked with ABB to ensure the robots could meet Northeast Foods' 80 parts-per-minute handling requirement.

Collaboration between baker and robotics supplier leads to another reason for robotics' growing popularity, Gale says. Robots today can be easily programmed to perform a variety of specialized applications and to handle products in a particular manner.