Filling a sandwich is not particularly difficult, unless it is being done on an industrial scale with a throughput of thousands of sandwiches per hour. One American business is making a determined effort to further automate the process. Founded in 1972, the family-run Grote Company of Columbus, Ohio, has established a global reputation as a specialist in the mechanization of sandwich making. Until recently, the upper and lower halves of the sandwich were put together manually. Now Grote has managed to automate this process as well, using a Stäubli TX2-60 HE six-axis robot with wash-down capability.
At the heart of the assembly line is a six-axis robot, the Stäubli TX2-60 HE. After assembling the sandwich halves, the robot rotates the sandwich 45 degrees and positions it diagonally on the conveyor belt. It then proceeds to the last station, where the sandwich is cut in half or quarters in the desired configuration. Now the snack is ready for packaging. Up to 60 sandwiches per minute per lane can be produced in this way, with twin lines available to double production up to 120 sandwiches per minute.