Goldfuß Engineering pioneers use of Yaskawa robots for handling sensitive vials

Small bottles – major challenge

Some objects – under certain conditions – simply resist automation. That was hitherto the case with vials packed in plastic hollow boxes. These are small cylindrical medicine bottles, as used millions of times in the pharmaceutical industry. Goldfuß engineering has now solved the problem for once and for all: with a special gripper in combination with a Yaskawa Motoman robot.

Not least due to different clean room classes, in pharmaceutical production vials must pass through several handling steps. In particular, the feeding of empty vials into the washing or filling machine, or of filled vials into the inspection or packing machine, is usually still done manually.

The main reasons for this are to be found in the vials themselves: consisting of thin glass, they are extremely fragile. In addition, with sizes of only a few millilitres, they are very small. The limitations of conventional vacuum grippers are quickly reached. A further difficulty is that the vials are often transported in-house in sealable plastic hollow boxes, where they are positioned in no particular order. This poses special challenges when it comes to automation.