2008-01-14 - PickMaster 5 contains all the features necessary to create a robust palletising application without the need to do any robot programming.
ABB, the world leading power and automation technology group, has launched PickMaster 5 software for palletising applications, succeeding the well-known ABB FlexPalletizer ® system. More than ten years of palletising experience is carried over into the new palletising software, combining experience with modern, highly flexible software.
PickMaster 5 is specially designed for the packaging industry and palletising integrators.
The new palletising software is easy to use, regardless of whether it comes to setting up a small or a large complex system. The user will intuitively learn how to choose patterns, how to present the boxes onto the pallet and use many other advanced palletising features. PickMaster generates the robot movements including advanced gripper functions and operates in harmony with simultaneous requests from surrounding infeed and outfeed stations - all without need for robot programming, allowing non-robot specialists to do the job.
Derek Ford ABB Robotics Segment Manager - Food & Beverage, says: “PickMaster 5 for palletising supports single and multiple robot installations handling multiple product lines and feeding box dimensions and pallet patterns for any number of different packing formats. The application is configured by means of a graphical user interface on a standard offline PC in the familiar Windows environment.
“The software serves the entire chain from object definition to the optimal selection of palletising patterns, building up entire pallets and calculating the most efficient robot movements. Users can inspect their results in rotatable three-dimensional views of the complete pallet matrix. PickMaster’s built-in flexibility, scalability and user friendly interface also allows rapid adaption to changes in production needs. Couple this with RobotStudio, ABB's 3d off-line simulation tool, and users can even view robot motion changes in a fully simulated environment before putting them in to use,” adds Derek.
ABB strives for continuous improvements to packaging software and the next PickMaster release will add further “hot tuning” using the graphical teaching pendant. End users and integrators will also benefit from using a globally supported palletising solution.
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs some 111,000 people.