Warehouse robotics and automation specialist Smart Robotics has launched its Smart Mixed Case Palletizer, an industrial robot pick-and-place station.

According to the company, the system is designed to improve warehouse delivery speed by removing one of the biggest obstacles: manual palletizing of mixed products or stock-keeping units (SKUs).

Source: Smart Robotics

Further paving the way for warehouse automation, the robot enables another step toward touchless shipping and allows large distribution centers to pre-sort to multiple destinations without increasing the number of full-time equivalent employees (FTEs).

The Smart Mixed Case Palletizer allows for improved warehouse capacity by automatically stacking goods for delivery from the main warehouse to the respective receiving location — without warehouse floor workers having to manually pick and place goods.

As the next-gen version of its predecessor, the Smart Palletizer, the Smart Mixed Case Palletizer is able to stack mixed cases. The robot’s stacking behavior is not limited to packages that are of the same size or weight and it can predict its own stacking sequence, whereas traditional palletizing solutions rely on predefined stacking patterns to palletize goods of the same size, weight and shape.

According to its developers, the Smart Mixed Case Palletizer does not rely on a predetermined stacking pattern, which means that the robot can govern itself to sort and stack randomly mixed parcels as they come in.

So far, Smart Robotics claims that the Smart Mixed Case Palletizer can pre-sort mixed batches of items, packaged in medium to large (up to 25 kg) boxes, from the sorter to pallet following a mixed SKU stacking pattern. Based on the robot’s “stacking accuracy and palletizing efficiency, small load distribution improves.”

For more information on the technology, visit the Smart Robotics website.