ABB Robots in Packaging: From Hand Packing to FlexPicker

From 1920s coffee packing tables to PMMI's 2026 finding that robots now beat labor on lifetime cost, and how ABB FlexPicker and PoWa robots pack products.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/25/20261 min read

Around 1920, a photographer visited the Crescent Manufacturing Company in Seattle and caught the packing crew at a long wooden table. Tins of coffee moved along the table and into cases by hand. Packing was repetitive work, and in many food plants it was one of the last jobs to get a machine.

Sepia photo of workers standing along a long wooden packing table stacked with tins and cases
Sepia photo of workers standing along a long wooden packing table stacked with tins and cases

Employees packing coffee at the Crescent Manufacturing Company, Seattle, around 1920. Photo: Jacobs Photo / MOHAI via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Even in 1972, when Queen Juliana visited the Droste chocolate factory in Haarlem, a woman in a white coat was setting chocolates into trays by hand. Filling and bottling machines got much faster over those decades, as on this brewery line, but putting finished products into boxes often stayed manual.

Black and white photo of a woman in a white coat filling trays with chocolates while visitors watch
Black and white photo of a woman in a white coat filling trays with chocolates while visitors watch

Queen Juliana watches chocolates being set into trays by hand at the Droste factory in Haarlem, 1972. Photo: Cees de Boer / Noord-Hollands Archief via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

In September, PMMI, the US packaging machinery association, argued that robots now cost less than manual labor over their lifetime in food, beverage and consumer goods plants. It expects the US market for packaging and processing robots to grow from about $440 million in 2025 to roughly $800 million by 2031.

Winding conveyors carrying rows of green beer bottles through a bottling hall
Winding conveyors carrying rows of green beer bottles through a bottling hall

Bottles on the filling line at the Krostitzer brewery in Germany. Photo: ChristianBier / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

ABB's IRB 360 FlexPicker was designed for this job. It is a fast delta robot that hangs over a conveyor, uses a camera to find each product, and drops it into a case. At Dot's Pretzels in the US, ABB robots, including FlexPickers packing snack bags into cases, helped the company double its packing productivity.

Row of ABB delta robots above a conveyor placing bags into brown cardboard cases
Row of ABB delta robots above a conveyor placing bags into brown cardboard cases

ABB IRB 360 FlexPickers packing snack bags into cases at Dot's Pretzels. Photo: ABB

ABB's PickMaster Lite software, launched in May, makes such cells quicker to build, and ABB says its templates cut engineering work by 30% and commissioning time by 25%. For heavier cases there are ABB's new PoWa cobots, with payloads from 7 to 30 kg, which can pack or stack boxes without a big safety cage.

Glass-walled ABB FlexPicker cell with a man working at a laptop beside it
Glass-walled ABB FlexPicker cell with a man working at a laptop beside it

A FlexPicker cell set up with ABB's PickMaster Lite software. Photo: ABB

My guess is that the bigger change will be in scale. Robots used to pay off only on long runs of a single product. With cheaper cells and simpler software, a small brand that sells online could automate short runs and gift boxes, and the person who used to tape cartons could run the line instead.

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 with a vacuum gripper for picking and palletizing boxes. Photo: ABB

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