25 years of pick & place machines from Schubert – with unmatched versatility to take on any packaging task

As great as the flexibility and possible product variety may be, the innovations that Schubert has successfully launched and continues to launch with its pick & place machines are just as numerous. Since Gerhard Schubert GmbH introduced the world’s first packaging robot in 1981, the packaging machine specialist has consistently relied on robot technology in its machines. Its famous “Roby” from 1981 was in fact a pick & place robot in the strictest sense of the term. Even though it would take another 15 years of development before the first official Schubert picker line was deployed – with the counterflow principle and fully automatic single pick from running production – it was Roby that heralded a new era for pick & place machines in 1984 with its use in the world’s first chocolate packing line.

Today, customers can use the most diverse types of robots, based on the Scara or Delta design, to have their requirements for machine performance and footprint implemented individually and fully automatically. The counterflow principle, which is now well-known and proven throughout the industry, is also a Schubert development and was patented when it was introduced in 1996. The image processing system developed in-house turned out to be just as important for the picker lines. Optionally with an incident-light scanner and/or 3D scanner directly installed in the system, it provides the pick & place robots with the necessary information and can therefore guarantees outstanding packaging quality. One of the latest innovations is 3D format parts, which are used in the machines as robot tools, for instance: Via the PARTBOX part streaming platform, Schubert makes it possible to print out the parts simply via a certified print job.

Schubert looks back on the largest number of pick & place machines and, almost more importantly, arguably the greatest experience with pick & place robots in the industry. The world’s largest and longest picker line went into operation some two years ago – it packs close to 5,000 biscuits a minute with a total of 48 F4 robots. The combination of innovative technologies and decades of expertise is what enables the exceptional precision in the packaging process with the picker lines – earning the packaging machine manufacturer its position as market leader in this segment.