When worker safety drives innovation: How one ice cream cone manufacturer is taking care of its people

Initially glimpse, palletizing gelato cone boxes does not seem like a risky task. Yet when those boxes consider 35 to 40 extra pounds and require to be piled shoulder-high, change after change, 5 days a week– you begin to recognize the stress it places on individuals.

That’s precisely what one significant united state food producer recognized. They create a variety of cones– waffles, sugar, and cake. In spite of their range and reach, what truly stuck out to us was something else: their society.

This business runs as an ESOP– a Worker Supply Possession Strategy– which indicates everyone on the flooring has genuine skin in the video game. From the front workplace to the assembly line, they all possess an item of business. And when that holds true, safety and security comes to be greater than a plan. It comes to be individual.

Why automate?

It had not been a labor lack that drove their choice to automate palletizing. It had not been also regarding effectiveness in the standard feeling. The stimulate originated from an extremely human location: way too many shoulder injuries Raising hefty boxes over and over, specifically to the top of a pallet, was triggering troubles. The kind that takes individuals unemployed and places long-lasting stress on the group. They really did not intend to await the following injury. They intended to stop it.

So, they made an action. They selected to generate a robot palletizing system– not to change a person, however to get rid of the danger from a job that simply really did not make good sense for individuals to be doing any longer.

What made this a great fit?

The technological side was simple. Packages are significant, they’re well within the haul series of a cobot palletizer. The business currently had Global Robotics on-site, so incorporating an additional one with our PE20 knew region.

Yet the genuine fit had not been regarding rate or specifications. It had to do with treatment. They weren’t attempting to get rid of a work. The palletizing job was simply among several managed by their group. What they desired was to get rid of the injury danger. Simple and straightforward. And also, the simplicity of usage of the programs user interface enabled to upskill some drivers that can currently make use of the robotic.

A takeaway for food suppliers

Automation generally obtains assessed via the lens of labor cost savings. Yet this tale is a tip: functional designs issue Employee safety and security isn’t a soft statistics– it’s an effective factor to reassess hands-on jobs. Hefty training, repeated activities, and unpleasant settings take a toll. And also if you have actually obtained qualified individuals on your group, that does not imply they need to be doing those tasks.

This isn’t around chasing after buzzwords like “lights-out production.” It has to do with resolving genuine troubles in genuine plants, with useful devices that function.

And if you’re running a center where your group is your best possession– similar to this one– you could discover that business situation for automation is more powerful than you assume. For extensive understandings on the toll handbook palletizing can tackle a firm and exactly how automation can reduce those pressures, download our Manual Palletizing Ergonomic Risks ebook by market professional, Carla Silver.