Automated Handling, Assembly and Packaging of Highly Variable Compliant Food Products - Making a Sandwich

This paper describes the design, construction and testing of an automated system for the assembly and packaging of triangular sandwiches. This process is currently highly labour intensive with little automated machinery available. This paper analyses the current manual production techniques and develops a number of modular workstations which can be incorporated into an existing line in place of human operators. The machine developed completes the final assembly of the sandwich and then cuts and packages it into a plastic skillet (container) for dispatch. To test the overall performance of the system real plant trials were conducted with the machine in a sandwich production factory and the results of these trials are reported here