90 Cups a Cycle: Dipping-Cup Filling & Robotic Case Packing for AmeriQual
AmeriQual runs a production line that packages product like ketchup into the rectangular dipping cups you find in fast-food restaurants. Two problems had to be solved at once: fill the cups fast enough to keep the line economical, and get the filled cups into boxes without a wall of manual labour at the end.
Mikewill delivered both halves. First, a filler that charges 90 cups per machine cycle. Second, the packaging end — a method of placing the filled cups into boxes built around four ABB robots working with a conveyor system.
How it came together
AmeriQual Group has been in Evansville, Indiana since 1987, and is best known as the largest supplier of Meals, Ready-to-Eat to the U.S. military. Alongside that, it runs high-volume shelf-stable and portion-control food packaging for major branded food companies — which is where the dipping cups come in.
The brief covered two jobs. The first was the filler: charge rectangular dipping cups with product like ketchup, at a rate that made the line worth running. Mikewill's filler handles 90 cups per machine cycle.
The second was everything after the fill. Getting cups into boxes reliably is the kind of end-of-line problem that quietly eats labour, so Mikewill built the packing cell around four ABB robots coordinated with a conveyor system.
Taking on the filling and the packing together meant one team owned the handoff between them — no integrator pointing at the machine builder when cup and case timing drift apart.
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