ABB Robots in Beverage Warehouses and Mixed Pallets

From hand-stacked crates in 1941 to Swire Coca-Cola's SAI robots sorting 600 cases an hour, and how ABB IRB 660 palletizers and PoWa cobots stack drinks.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/25/20261 min read

In this 1941 photo from a Coca-Cola plant in Quebec, a worker watches a bottling machine as filled bottles stream past. Filling was mechanised early. The heavy lifting came afterwards, when people stacked crates by hand, loaded trucks and carried cases into shops one order at a time.

Black and white photo of a man in a white cap next to a bottling machine full of bottles
Black and white photo of a man in a white cap next to a bottling machine full of bottles

A worker at a bottling machine in a Coca-Cola plant, 1941. Photo: Conrad Poirier / BAnQ via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

In much of the world, drinks still reach small shops that way. This truck is being unloaded by hand, with packs piled high on a cart. In the warehouse, building each shop's order means lifting heavy shrink-wrapped packs of bottles for a whole shift.

Man pushing a cart stacked high with drink packs beside an open truck
Man pushing a cart stacked high with drink packs beside an open truck

Soft drinks unloaded by hand from a delivery truck onto a cart. Photo: Bigkotech / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

In September, Swire Coca-Cola said its SAI system is picking live orders at its Zhengzhou plant in Henan. At peak it sorts 600 cases an hour, around the clock, with accuracy close to 100%. Each robot lifts up to four shrink-wrapped packs in one move, and the fleet builds mixed-product pallets without manual work.

Conveyors carrying boxes and bottles through a large bottling hall
Conveyors carrying boxes and bottles through a large bottling hall

An automated bottling line at a winery near Geyserville, California, 2011. Photo: DimiTalen / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

ABB robots already do the stacking at the end of many drink and food lines. The IRB 660 is a four-axis palletizer built for heavy, fast stacking. At Piracanjuba's dairy plant in Goiás, Brazil, about 75 people used to stack cartons by hand before ABB fitted IRB 660 robots to the lines.

Large bright dairy packing hall with robot cells and stacked pallets
Large bright dairy packing hall with robot cells and stacked pallets

ABB palletizing robots on the UHT milk lines at Piracanjuba's plant in Goiás, Brazil. Photo: ABB (ABB Robotics magazine 1/14)

Mixed pallets are harder because every layer is different. ABB's PalletizingPowerPac in RobotStudio lets engineers plan stack patterns offline, and ABB's AI-based Robotic Item Picker can grab items it has not seen before. For smaller distributors, a PoWa cobot with a vacuum gripper can stack cases next to people.

White ABB palletizing robot stacking red and brown cases onto pallets
White ABB palletizing robot stacking red and brown cases onto pallets

An ABB IRB 660 stacking cases onto pallets. Photo: ABB

I expect beverage warehouses to go the way of bottling lines, with machines doing the lifting while people handle exceptions and deliveries. Robots on trucks or at the shop door will probably come next. At home, the only drinks robot I want is one that carries the case of water up the stairs.

White ABB PoWa cobot arm with a square vacuum gripper in a dim blue-lit hall
White ABB PoWa cobot arm with a square vacuum gripper in a dim blue-lit hall

An ABB PoWa cobot fitted with a vacuum gripper for picking and stacking boxes. Photo: ABB

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