Case Study: Hershey achieves flexible, space- and labor-saving automated palletizing with Honeywell Intelligrated Alvey hybrid solution

Hybrid palletizing solution hits sweet spot for Hershey

The Hershey Company needed to modernize a busy manufacturing plant that handled a wide, frequently changing mix of SKUs (Hershey’s, Kit Kat, Cadbury) that had been hand-palletized—requiring 12–15 people per shift, causing low throughput, high labor and ergonomic/safety issues, and constrained by a small (~7,000 sq ft) palletizing area.

Intelligrated delivered an Alvey hybrid solution: an Alvey 780 case palletizer for mid–high-velocity SKUs (up to 37 cartons/min), three Motoman robots equipped with UniGripper vacuum tooling for low-velocity SKUs, integrated conveyors, a laser transfer car, pattern-generation software, and operator training. Installed in five weeks and commissioned quickly, the system increased speed and flexibility, reduced labor and ergonomic risks, proved reliable with strong ROI, and can be expanded as needs change.

Hershey

Alex Diaz

Systems Engineer