Pallet Wrapping Robot: Stretch Film to ABB Lines

A pallet leaving a factory has to survive forklifts, trucks and warehouse racks without the boxes sliding off, and for about fifty years the usual answer has been a skin of plastic film. The pallet wrapping robot is the newest part of that story. This post goes from rope, steel strapping and shrink hoods, through the stretch wrapper of 1972 and the machines that followed, to the mobile robots and robot-ready wrappers launched in October 2026, and looks at where ABB palletizers and Flexley Mover AMRs fit at the end of the line.

A pallet of UNICEF cartons wrapped in stretch film on a turntable pallet wrapper. Photo: heb / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

From rope and steel bands to the first stretch wrapper

Before film, loads were tied. Goods moved as single crates, sacks and barrels, lifted in slings and lashed with rope. The pallet and the forklift changed that during the Second World War, when depots moved unit loads by fork truck, as in a 1945 photo of gas bottles delivered to a Navy ship in Charleston. Stacked loads were held with steel bands and later plastic ones, the business strapping maker Signode is known for. Bands grip a load at a few points only, so a pallet of loose cartons can still shed boxes between them.

A forklift brings a pallet of gas bottles to USS Ray K. Edwards at the Charleston Naval Shipyard, June 1945. Photo: U.S. Navy via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Shrink wrapping was the first full cover. A loose plastic hood or film went over the load and was heated until it pulled tight. Pat Lancaster and his brother Bill sold shrink-wrap ovens in Louisville, Kentucky, and in 1972 they invented the stretch wrapping machine, which tightens the film by stretching it, with no heat at all. Their company, Lantech, showed the first rotary system at the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers trade show in 1973. Pat Lancaster later pioneered pre-stretching the film, which cut film use roughly in half.

A Highlight Industries Freedom 7525, a fully automatic rotary arm stretch wrapping machine. Photo: Imsquare22 / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Modern film is mostly linear low-density polyethylene that can stretch around 500 percent before breaking and is used at about 100 to 300 percent. The machines settled into three main forms: turntables that spin the pallet, rotary arms that circle a load standing still, and rotary rings, which can wrap up to 160 pallets an hour. Automatic lines added conveyors, film cutters and clamps, so a pallet could be wrapped without anyone walking round it. Moving pallets on and off the wrapper stayed with forklift drivers, and that is the job robots are now taking over.

An automatic stretch wrapping machine with infeed and outfeed conveyors wrapping a pallet of cartons. Photo: MOVITEC Wrapping Systems / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

How AMRs and robot-ready wrappers reached the end of line in 2026

On 22 October 2026 Signode announced a wider range of autonomous mobile robots for moving palletized loads. The range covers lifting robots, pallet trucks, counterbalanced and reach forklifts and stackers that navigate without fixed lines and connect to its StorFast storage system. The company says its warehouse automation portfolio has more than 800 vehicles at over 80 sites, and one customer runs more than 17 robots in a single warehouse. "End-of-line automation doesn't stop once a product has been packaged and palletized," said Shawn Semer, Signode's vice president for global automation.

Stretch wrapped pallets of disaster supplies in a FEMA warehouse in Louisiana, 2008. Photo: Jacinta Quesada / FEMA via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Wrapper makers are redesigning machines for that traffic. Lantech launched its SL400AMR worldwide this autumn, a rotary arm stretch wrapper with a predictable interface for mobile robots that gives integrators clear machine states. It secures the film tail with air instead of heat or moving parts, and a clamp catches the leading tail so loose film causes fewer stoppages in automated runs. Lantech says it needs no conveyors or ramps, and it demonstrated the machine at PACK EXPO International in Chicago from 18 to 21 October, where the idea was simple to see: a mobile robot drops the load under the arm and collects it once it is wrapped.

Pallets of empty wine bottles delivered under plastic wrap to a wine grower's yard in France. Photo: Cjp24 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB robots work just before and after this step. IRB 460 and IRB 660 palletizers build the layers that the wrapper will cover, and ABB's Flexley Mover AMRs carry pallets around plants using 3D Visual SLAM navigation instead of fixed tracks. Our posts on truck unloading and palletizing and pallet repair cover the pallets themselves. ABB does not sell its own stretch wrapper, so in a typical line the robot cell hands the finished stack to a wrapper from a packaging machine maker.

An ABB IRB 660 palletizer, the kind of robot that builds the layers before a load is wrapped. Photo: ABB

Where pallet wrapping robots go next

Wrapping is starting to leave the fixed station. Self-propelled wrapping robots that drive around a pallet on the floor already exist from makers such as Robopac, and AMR-ready wrappers let a fleet bring loads to a single machine at night with no driver. In factories the likely layout runs from palletizer to AMR, wrapper, AMR again and dock, with one fleet manager directing the vehicles. Homes will never see this machinery, but the parcels and groceries that reach a household travel on wrapped pallets, and a load that shifts in transit is one reason goods arrive damaged.

A stretch wrapped pallet of chocolate wrapper rolls at Lindt and Sprüngli in Stratham, New Hampshire, 2017. Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

ABB robots could take on more of this, though for now it is a possibility. An IRB 660 or IRB 460 could place top sheets and corner boards before wrapping, a Flexley Mover could shuttle pallets between the palletizing cell and a robot-ready wrapper, and a GoFa CRB 15000 could check labels and film at the exit. Lines like this are usually laid out in simulation first, and RobotStudio lets engineers test cycle times and robot paths before any equipment is moved.

ABB palletizing robots on the UHT milk lines at Piracanjuba's plant in Goiás, Brazil. Photo: ABB

Film is the main open problem. Stretch film is plastic, and using less of it per pallet saves money and waste, which is why pre-stretch, thinner films and tighter control of wrap force get so much attention. Mixing AMRs with people and forklifts raises safety questions about speeds, zones and right of way. Cost matters for smaller plants, where one semi-automatic wrapper and a forklift driver may still be cheaper than a fleet. Someone on site also has to maintain the robots, the wrapper and the software that links them.

An ABB Flexley Mover P604 among wooden pallets; it finds its way with 3D Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

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