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Robotics equipment can assure that perishable products are being handled in an appropriate, safe manner. 3,500 and 4,000 cases each ten-hour day on pallets.��� To meet their target objectives, Pompeian decided to deploy Ashland, Virginia-based Flexicell robotic palletizing equipment to properly manage shipping cases. ���We desired repeatability and uptime performance, flexibility, the ability to handle ever-changing pallet patterns and new packaging structures and ease of use, as this was our first use of robotics,��� said Lydon in a Packing Digest news article. ���We couldn���t afford a long learning curve or any extra downtime.��� The robotics system took approximately 40 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 six months to be designed, tested and implemented in Pompeian���s facility. Flexicell���s robotics equipment was able to handle Pompeian���s units packed at speeds from 9 to 27 cases per minute. ���We couldn���t have asked for a better startup,��� said Lydon, in an online testimonial. ���We���re already seeing a payback. Flexicell did a fantastic job. We would only use Flexicell for our future projects.��� Chicago, Illinois-based Hillshire Brands (formerly Sara Lee), a meat-centric food solutions company, choose FANUC robotics solutions to increase their efficiency. During a webinar entitled ���How to Apply ��� FOOD LOGISTICS Robotics in High-Speed Food Handling Applications��� Jonathan Riechert, an associate at Hillshire Brands, discussed their biggest challenges to implementing robotics equipment. One challenge was how robotics equipment respond to change versus humans. ���Humans and robots are different���they have different responses to change,��� said Riechert in the webinar. ���Humans are adaptable and intuitive and obviously the robots are not. One of the things that we discovered in implementing automation was that humans can overcome deficiencies in designing their line and if those deficiencies still exist when you go to automate, it���ll become very obvious because the robots are not able to adapt.��� Additionally, Hillshire admitted to difficulties when explaining the robotics equipment initiatives to nontechnical employees. ���One of the ways that we found to overcome this was to show them the right way to operate the cell with the robotics,��� explained Riechert. ���Show them various ways it can go wrong to kind of explain why we did what we did with the automation cell, and that www.foodlogistics.com