Label Printing Robot: From Glue Pots to ABB YuMi

Almost every box, bottle and pallet that leaves a factory carries a label, and more of those labels are now printed on demand and put on by machine. A label printing robot joins a printer to an arm or applicator, so a fresh barcode goes onto each item as it passes. This post follows labelling from cannery workers pasting paper by hand to the first labelling machines and print and apply systems, then looks at robots labelling hams and supermarket crates today, including an ABB YuMi in Switzerland, and at what still makes odd shaped parts hard to label.

ABB's dual arm YuMi labelling reusable crates at BINA's food plant in Switzerland. Photo: ABB

How labels went on by hand and then by machine

Early labels were paper and glue. In canneries and bottling plants, rows of workers pasted printed labels round each can or bottle by hand, then packed the cans into wooden cases. Pharmacy suppliers worked the same way for decades: a 1942 photo from the Allen and Hanburys factory in London shows a woman pasting labels onto bottles of cod liver oil with a glue tub and brush. The work was cheap but slow, and a crooked or missing label meant a can that a grocer might refuse. Canneries were early buyers of labelling machines.

A worker pastes labels onto bottles of cod liver oil at Allen and Hanburys in London, 1942. Photo: Ministry of Information Photo Division via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

By the 1910s salmon canneries on the Pacific coast were using can labelling machines, with workers feeding cans in and stacking the labelled ones into cases. Bottles got their own machines. In Germany Hermann Kronseder began building semi-automatic labellers to his own designs in 1951, and his company, Krones, now builds complete bottling lines. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Ray Stanton Avery founded the business in 1935 that became Avery Dennison, which made self-adhesive labels on a backing sheet. They needed no glue pot.

A can labelling machine in a salmon cannery, around 1917. Photo: John Nathan Cobb via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Barcodes changed what a label had to do. The first product scanned with a UPC barcode at a checkout was a pack of Wrigley's gum at Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, in June 1974. Once warehouses also tracked cases and pallets by code, each label had to be printed for that exact item at the moment it was packed. Logopak, a German maker, says it built the first print and apply labelling system in 1983. A thermal printer makes the label and a tamp pad or air jet presses it onto the passing box.

A roll fed labelling machine for wine bottles. Photo: Sémhur / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Robots labelling hams, crates and pallets today

Print and apply machines still do most of the work on straight conveyors. Robots come in where products are irregular or labels must go in awkward places. In Spain, integrator Timpolot built a cell in which a Stäubli SCARA robot injects tag labels into Serrano hams, up to 900 an hour. A vision system with AI picks a spot on each ham away from the bone, which makes up 30 to 40 percent of its weight. Epson also said in October 2026 that it would show ColorWorks label printers and robot automation at Pack Expo.

A print and apply labeller putting barcode labels on a wrapped pallet of cases. Photo: Labelling Technologies / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

ABB has its own labelling case. Bischofszell Nahrungsmittel (BINA), a Swiss food maker that supplies supermarkets including Migros, needed to fit barcode labels into slots on reusable plastic crates at an order picking station. Steffen Knoll of BINA said the proven mechanical solution needed space the company did not have. ABB partner moveline AG installed a dual arm YuMi, which needs no safety fence. A gripper with two vacuum suction pads bends each label just enough to slide it into its holder.

YuMi's suction gripper slides a barcode label into the holder on a crate at BINA. Photo: ABB

The YuMi at BINA handles 1,200 containers an hour across two shifts, Monday to Friday. At the end of a line, ABB's IRB 460 and IRB 660 palletizers stack cases, and a print and apply unit or a second robot can label each finished pallet on two sides. The same arms that stack cases in packaging lines can also hold a label to a carton face. Engineers usually check reach and cycle time for such cells in RobotStudio before anything is bolted to the floor.

Close up of the bent label and vacuum gripper YuMi uses at BINA. Photo: ABB

Where robotic labelling goes next

Labels are carrying more data. Food and drug makers already print batch and expiry information on each pack, and more warehouses read codes with cameras rather than handheld scanners. Robots fit when the label position changes from one product to the next, as with hams, machined castings, tyres or furniture parts. A camera finds a flat area, the robot places the label and checks the print. Odd parts in small batches are where fixed applicators struggle most, and where small cobots such as GoFa CRB 15000 or the single arm YuMi IRB 14050 may be useful.

An ABB IRB 660 palletizer, the kind of robot that stacks labelled cases at the end of a line. Photo: ABB

Small producers are a different market. Craft wineries, brewers and food startups still label by hand or with simple crank or tabletop machines, often one bottle at a time. They rarely run long enough to justify a full labeller, so a cobot that can label one product in the morning and pack another after lunch could suit them. Tools such as ABB's Wizard block programming let a staff member teach a new label position without writing code, as covered in our guide to controlling robots with no code.

A small hand operated labeller putting labels on wine bottles at a winery. Photo: Agne27 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The open problems are mostly practical. Labels curl, stick to grippers and peel off cold or wet surfaces, so the end effector and the label stock have to be matched. A wrong barcode on a pallet can send a whole truckload to the wrong place, so print checks and rejects have to be part of the cell. Cost matters too: a print and apply unit on a conveyor is cheaper than a robot, and plants add an arm only when products vary or space is tight, as at BINA.

An ABB GoFa CRB 15000 cobot at a work table. Photo: ABB

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