Bakeries in recent years have switched to servo motors, which control conveyor speed, the starting and stopping of pan indexing and more precisely control their movement on the production line to minimize damage.

Additionally, using lightweight, heat-resistant plastic and other durable materials to transport products has also lessened the load on production lines, observed Paolo Berlaffa, applications manager, bakery, GEA Bakery.

Moreover, he said, reliable robotic pan handling that reduces labor even further makes investment today more attractive than in the past. Robotics can also depan products, streamline the movement of pans throughout the production line, and in some bakeries, assist with cake decorating and other labor-saving product enhancements.

However, the acceptance of robotics didn’t happen overnight.

“Customers at the beginning were a bit reluctant to use anthropomorphic robots due to the high cost of investment, but technologies have improved and simplified to become more price accessible for medium and large bakeries,” Berlaffa said.

Ken Mentch, automation sales manager, Middleby Bakery, concurred that a greater number of commercial bakeries are giving robotics a closer look with today’s labor shortage and the drive for greater capacity to meet market demands.

 “We’ve been trying to introduce robotics for a long time, but the baking industry is a bit conservative,” he said. “In the past five to 10 years, robotics have truly been accepted and have almost become the standard in the industry. It’s what bakers expect on new, bigger lines.”

While robotic pan handling has been around for more than 20 years, bakeries have begun integrating automated guided vehicles (AGVs) into the process during the past five years.

“AGVs are providing the opportunity for automatic pan storage and retrieval within areas of the bakery that just weren’t possible to automate before,” Mentch explained. “You can store and retrieve the pans from areas you couldn’t reach in the past.”

AGVs can handle more pans or heavier stacks of larger pans than when done manually.

“Operators get tired and make mistakes,” said Joakim Nordell, export sales manager, Middleby Bakery. “With today’s robotics and AGVs, you can remove the most strenuous tasks, and operators can now focus on the more important work on the production line.”

Mentch pointed out these vehicles also have built-in safety systems that slow or stop when someone steps in front of them. This feature allows plant operators and AGVs to coexist in the same work area. 

“When I entered this field 25 years ago, I could not imagine an AGV moving stacks of pans in an area where people are walking and working,” he recalled. “I would have said, ‘You’re just kidding me,’ but that’s where we are today. Now, there is a lot more usable space in bakeries because this highway is shared by people, by forklifts and by AGVs. It really opens up our layouts for designing bakeries at this point.”

Royal Kaak is introducing automated mobile robots (AMRs). Thijs Meijnen, product sales manager for the company, said many robotic storage-and-retrieval systems currently have a carriage that runs on a rail or other fixed paths and are often enclosed with guards and other safety systems.

The programmable AMRs, however, operate more like a taxi that picks up racks or stacks of pans, trays or peel boards and drops them off at destinations where bakeries may have more floor space that’s often a distance away from the production line.

“It’s used for tasks where there is no fixed path at all,” Meijnen said. “You can choose or even change the location for storing pans.”

This article is an excerpt from the October 2024 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Pan Coating & Handling, click here.