Drones for palletising

Manufacturers of consumer products can use these flying robots to design a very compact, flexible and scalable palletising process. Qimarox will be continuing along the path embarked upon by Amazon.com and others, says the company.

Online store Amazon.com and parcel carriers UPS and DHL have announced they wish to start using drones to distribute parcels to consumers. These drones could make it possible to solve the problem of the expensive last few miles in the delivery of online orders to consumers.

After using drones for external logistics processes, the next step is to use them for internal logistics processes. Qimarox has launched an investigation into the possibilities. As a manufacturer of components for material handling systems, naturally Quimarox’s initial idea would be to apply this to product palletising.

Operational manager Jaco Hooijer said: "Because of the limitations in terms of capacity and ergonomics, using people to stack goods on pallets is no longer an option for most manufacturers of FMCG. Using drones, they can fully automate the palletising process, while retaining the much greater level of flexibility and scalability entailed by using real people."

The great thing about palletising with drones is that the process can be redesigned at any time without having to move or adjust any of your machines. All that is needed is to change the coordinates in the software that controls the drones. Another advantage is that capacity can easily be increased or decreased by simply switching more drones on or off. It is even possible to use a single drone to operate multiple end-of-line packaging lines.

The biggest limitation is currently the weight that a drone can carry. Currently, drones are being tested that can lift products of up to 2.3kg. However, the technology is developing so rapidly that weights of up to 10kg should be possible within the foreseeable future.

Qimarox doesn’t expect palletising systems using drones to be the ideal solution for every manufacturer of consumer products. Quimarox will therefore also continue to focus on its existing palletiser products.