De-nesting and presenting fragile glassware/chinaware for tray and cart setup

The operation cycles enormous volumes of glassware, cups and chinaware — Unitechnik built automated small-parts warehouses specifically because the variety of crockery and cutlery is so large. Individual fragile items must be picked from nested stacks or racks and placed onto trays/carts for service, then handled again on the return/wash cycle. The objects are rigid but brittle (thin-walled glasses, glazed china) and often nested or closely packed. The task sits at the interface between the automated AS/RS storage and the manual tray-setting line. It is hard for a robot because separating nested fragile items and placing them without glass-to-glass impact requires careful force control; a chip is both scrap and a food-safety/foreign-object hazard. EKFC has adjacent automation (automated small-parts warehousing) but the fragile item-level handling onto trays remains manual. We identified this through our own research; we have not confirmed the specifics with the customer directly. This page is our researched read — a starting point for that conversation.