Coffee and Cobots? | Cobot Spotlight

When you think of coffee, industrial automation probably isn’t the first thing on your mind. But if you are a manufacturer dealing with logistics, you’ll appreciate how coffee, palletization, and cobots came together for this fantastic automation success story.

Napco Brands is a multi-generational business producing coffee. 

Napco’s coffee has warded off morning drowsiness and soothed people’s lives since the early 1900s.

“Napco Brands came out of my grandfather and great-grandfather, making coffee for many generations and years,” — Eric Latsch, VP of Operations at Napco Brands.

Today, most manufacturers struggle with labor shortages and tight margins, especially with logistics and palletization.

Nobody really wants to stack boxes. 

I for one, would rather enjoy that coffee instead of hauling 1000+ boxes a day on pallets.

Naturally, Napco’s team needed to consider automation to boost their productivity and ensure reliable production. And cobots helped them do just that!

The Primary Challenges Napco Was Facing

While Napco had the capability to pack products for private-label customers, they struggled with the manual operation of the process.

Operators had to box the cups, transport the boxes to other operators, and palletize them—all by hand.

This is inefficient, time-consuming, and a safety hazard. But most of all, it’s boring for the employees. 

So, it’s a challenge to hire fresh staff in a tight labor market.

Why Napco Brands Choose Collaborative Robots

Napco chose cobots primarily for the ease of deployment.

“There’s a large barrier to entry when you’re talking millions of dollars in a single packaging line that may or may not help you,” said Eric. 

Cobots are flexible, less costly, and can often be delivered quickly.

Eric worked with Brian Einzig, a sales engineer at FPE Automation, who brought in Jeff Benning, CEO of DesignHawk Innovations, to integrate the packaging line with the AX10 Robotiq Palletizing Solution. 

Benning ensured that the two cobot palletizers could pick up boxes from the conveyor and place them on pallets.

Napco’s Cobot ROI

Guess how fast Napco got their money’s worth? 

Less than a year for the Robotiq Palletizing Solution.

Of course, everyone’s mileage may vary, as the popular saying goes. But cobots can be really powerful when selected and implemented properly. 

Now, Napco can enjoy mostly pure profits from the ongoing cobot automation.

The Primary Business Benefits Cobot Palletizing Brought To Napco Brands

#1 Productivity.

#2 Reliability.

#3 Safety.

#4 No more handling the boxes manually.

#5 New customers.

Cobot Effect On Napco Staff

All the cobots in the world won’t help you if your staff can’t adapt to them.

That’s why proper cobot selection is critical.

Eric Matthews, Napco Brands' production floor manager, didn’t have previous robotics experience. He didn’t need any—not with a properly selected and implemented cobot system.

“It’s a very simple process. They walked me through it, no more than five to ten minutes of training and I can take any size box, with any parameters I want, and program it myself,” said Eric.

The Robotiq’s Palletizing Solution blended into the daily staff activities without issues.

Nobody stacks boxes anymore.

8 employees were freed from this tedious task.

The best part?

Eric was able to redeploy their staff from undesirable manual labor to operate bigger equipment at higher pay! 

I love the win-win-win type of scenario.

Thankfully, there is no shortage of those in the cobot industry, as long as you are paying attention to stories where the right cobot was used for the right application. 

Read more details on the Napco Brands success story from all of the great people who worked on this project here:

• https://robotiq.com/resource-center/case-studies/napco

• https://www.universal-robots.com/case-stories/napco-brands/

• https://www.designhawkllc.com/case-studies

Have a success story to share? Simply reply to this email! We would love to hear about it!

Enjoy your week!

The Cobot Spotlight Team