At Macfrut, held last week in Rimini, the Maf Roda Group presented one of its innovations, the Dual Fast Pack packaging machine. This innovation was created to provide a solution to the labor shortage faced by more and more countries. "The Dual Fast Pack was designed for automatic packing of round fruit such as peaches, nectarines, and apples. Compared with the packaging robots available on the market, the Dual Fast Pack also offers added value thanks to its orientation system. Equipped with cameras, it detects the axis, stem, and calyx of the fruit, then orients the fruit to the best side, usually the most colorful, for optimum, uniform packaging," explains Marco Masotti, sales engineer at Maf-Roda Italy.
Production capacity equivalent to the work of 12 employees
Besides wrapping the fruit, the system aligns all the fruit in the same direction, automatically orienting each one according to predefined criteria. "There is also a single version of the robot, but the advantage of this double version is that it can do the work of a packing table on its own. The Fast Pack has a production capacity of 1 to 1.5 tons/h, and therefore provides work equivalent to that of 4 to 6 employees. The Dual Fast Pack covers a production capacity equivalent to that of a work line occupied by 12 people, which represents a significant reduction in labor costs."
Robotics: A promising future in the face of the shortage of skilled labor
According to Marco, the future of robotics is promising in terms of making significant savings and dealing with the shortage of skilled labor. "Although this equipment represents a significant investment, its advantage lies primarily in the reduction in the number of employees needed for packaging. This is a major issue in many countries: in Italy, in Europe in general, and even in countries like Peru, where finding skilled labor is becoming increasingly difficult. These new technologies help save money, but also free up employees for other tasks."
A vision system to guarantee the quality of the packaged fruit
To guarantee the quality of the packaged goods, a vision system linked to the machine is essential. "It checks the internal and external quality of the fruit before it is fed into the packaging machine, thus ensuring that only fruit that meets the user's requirements is processed, without the need for manual checks. The machine can, of course, be instructed to position the fruit according to specific preferences like enhancing the color or the number of fruits per tray, therefore offering great flexibility to meet the requirements of each production line."
For more information:
Marco Masotti
MafRoda Italia
[email protected]