Omega Design Corporation – a global provider of innovative packaging machinery for the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and consumer healthcare industries, and a worldwide leader in bottle unscrambling technology – introduced a new fully automatic robotic unscrambler at Pack Expo Las Vegas, 11-13 September 2023. At Stand C-3836, the company demonstrated the new machine’s ability to provide smarter sorting by utilizing a parallel-kinematic, multi-axis, pick-and-place robot module, which separates, orients, and positions bottles onto a conveyor or into stabilizing pucks.
Omega Design’s automatic unscrambler is designed for applications running complex or multiple bottle shapes, including a broad array of containers, bottles, tottles, jars, vials, jugs and tubes. The limited number of changeover points greatly reduces setup times. Its integrated hopper minimizes footprint, and the conveying system is optimized for robotic handling, with intelligent infeed metering control reducing recirculation of bottles.
The machine combines speed and accuracy via Omega Design’s dual infeed system, which purposefully presents two containers at once to the unit’s robotic arms from a single hopper. This process optimizes the robotic arms’ movements, yielding throughputs unobtainable by conventional methods. The setup also minimizes the machine’s overall floorspace footprint.
Another strong suit of the automatic robotic unscrambler is flexibility. The system can be configured to meet a range of capacity needs and speeds. This includes increased hopper capacity, as well as additional robot modules to increase speeds by up to 90 containers per minute per robot.
The machine features a user-friendly 15-inch touchscreen HMI, a sophisticated Rockwell Automation Optix visualization platform, and an advanced Allen Bradley integrated safety programmable logic controller (PLC). Rapid, repeatable pushbutton changeover with a limited number of change points helps diminish downtime between new product runs.
“Introducing a fully automatic robotics unscrambler applicable to a wide variety of containers aligns with our ongoing mission to produce equipment solutions that simplify processes through reduced labor requirements and intuitive operation,” said Glenn Siegele, president of Omega Design. “Importantly, the machine also comes in a modular design that can be configured to meet the specific needs of every customer.”
