Wolverine Packing, Co., is a multi-faceted protein company located in Detroit, Michigan. When Wolverine expanded its operations at a new greenfield facility, they wanted to include state-of-the-art technologies for meat processing, packaging, freezer storage, and distribution.
Wolverine decided to partner with FANUC’s Authorized System Integrator AMT to help them develop and execute a solution to meet their needs to increase efficiency and productivity while maintaining and enhancing quality and safety.
Solution: AMT worked with Wolverine to design and implement a case transfer conveyor and a robotic palletizer system capable of handling operator-packed cases of meat that is palletized for freezer storage. They were able to overcome challenges associated with concurrent construction and a refrigerated environment. The solution handles multiple case styles, line rates, and workflows while incorporating case conveyors, case tapers, weight checkers, x-rays, bar code scanners, robots, end of arm tooling (EOAT), pallet conveyor, a pallet dispenser, slip sheet dispensers, and a pallet wrapper.
The system includes three robotic palletizing cells featuring FANUC M-410iC robots along with Allen-Bradley controls. Each cell can process three SKUs at a time, with no changeover required between SKU batches.
Following this successful implementation, AMT worked with Wolverine to automate two other facilities.
