Automatic picking line for premium pralines
Established in 1857, Neuhaus is a distinguished Belgian chocolatier which manufactures and sells luxury chocolates, chocolate truffles, biscuits, and ice cream. This company is the pioneer and inventor of the Belgian praline, a chocolate cream ganache center inside a chocolate shell. Today, Neuhaus has selling points in 50 countries on all continents. All Neuhaus products are still made in Vlezenbeek, near Brussels, and are exported worldwide.
Automatic picking line for premium pralines
The company needed to automate its praline packaging process to optimize operational efficiency.
The challenge was to develop a fully automated, intelligent system that would replace the manual handling of pralines and ensure excellent product quality.
The solution: A Packaging line with artificial vision and quality control
We developed a state-of-the-art picking line with five Delta robots, all guided by artificial vision technology. These Delta robots are responsible for gently picking up pralines without damaging them, which is particularly critical for products with delicate toppings.
An innovative quality control system inspecting 100% of the products has also been implemented. In this way the system can accurately differentiate between good and bad pralines before they are picked by the synchronized robots. Only pralines that meet the customer’s strict quality standards are loaded into trays for further processing.
The system operates at a speed of 320 pralines per minute, ensuring both quality and efficiency in their production line.
What did we achieve?
01_
Increased production flexibility by working with different praline types.
02_
Consistency as automation guarantees uniform handling, reducing errors and variations.
03_
Cost-effectiveness through labor savings and decreased material wastage.
04_
Greater versatility by using the same gripper to handle various pralines.
05_
Robust quality control system that detects defects in shape, color, dimensions, height, missing parts, decoration, brown marks, cooking rate, holes, leaks, cracks, spots, among others.
«ATP offered us solid proposals that materialised in efficient equipment at a competitive price, thanks to which we have increased the productivity of our line.»
«For Neuhaus it is essential to ensure impeccable visual quality control while gently packaging our pralines at high speed. The line implemented by ATP allows us to achieve this with ease.»
«Thanks to the project with ATP, we have been able to increase productivity on our line; but more importantly, we have gained confidence in the possibilities of applying this technology in our type of activities.»
