Agri-food sector: SPIE innovates and integrates a cooperative robot

The Industrie division of SPIE Industrie & Tertiaire, a French subsidiary of the SPIE group, is testing, under real conditions, the performance levels of a palletising cooperative robot (cobot) for one of its clients operating in the agri-food sector. The objective is to provide a solution with high carrying capacities that is perfectly adapted to a constrained industrial environment. 

Fact sheet

  • Services: ICT
  • Subsidiary: SPIE France
  • Year: 2020
  • Tags: Industrial process
  • Status: Completed

Guaranteed safety and efficiency

As the latest creation devised by the Engineering Department and Mechanical Departments of the Industrie division of SPIE Industrie & Tertiaire, the solution, which incorporates a Fanuc CR35 cobot, is designed to ensure the safety of employees working in constrained environments, which represents a major challenge for the agri-food sector.

This new palletiser has been customised to meet the specific requirements of one of SPIE’s clients, and is adapted to the space in which it is installed:

  • In cooperative mode: the cobot works at a high speed, processing 8.5 cartons per minute.
  • When an employee enters the safety zone: the cobot switches to collaborative mode, reducing its speed to 3 cartons per minute. Operators can therefore work in interaction with it.

Our solution incorporating the Fanuc CR35 cobot will be one of the first of its kind used in the agri-food sector,” observes Yann Le Guen, departmental head at the Engineering Department and Mechanical Departments of the Industrie division of SPIE Industrie & Tertiaire. “The capacity of the cobot and its ability to switch between collaborative and cooperative mode allows industrialists to dispense with much heavier safety devices (wire mesh protection) and therefore limit the floor space taken up. By including it in our product range, we can now provide cobot-based solutions whilst guaranteeing high performance levels (loads of up to 35 kg processed at high speeds).