Contract coffee roaster and co-packer Cascade Coffee runs a complex, high-mix operation in the Seattle area, producing single-serve coffee capsules, retail bags, and other formats for major global brands as well as emerging specialty companies. Its business depends on flexibility and speed across hundreds of SKUs and dozens of pallet configurations.
For years the company handled palletizing the traditional way, by hand. As volumes increased and labor became harder to secure, the process began to strain both operations and employees. To solve the problem, Cascade deployed collaborative robot palletizers from Robotiq, installed with support from integration partner Olympus Controls.
According to company COO Ron Kane, quick success with the first installation soon led Cascade to expand the technology across multiple packaging lines. “We put in the cobotic palletizer as a test to see if it would solve the problem, and it solved the problem on day one,” he says. “We quickly wrote the check for the rest.”
Today Cascade operates six cobot palletizers on its retail production lines, delivering safety improvements, greater throughput, and a ROI.
Manual palletizing creates labor, performance challenges
Cascade Coffee produces a wide variety of coffee products for brand owners that rely on the company for roasting, grinding, flavoring, and packaging. The business model requires frequent product changeovers and constant adjustments on the packaging floor to accommodate 400 SKUs and many pallet patterns.
Manual palletizing struggled to keep up with that pace. Workers lifted cartons from conveyors and stacked them by hand, a repetitive process that required bending, twisting, and constant motion. Labor availability added another layer of difficulty. Turnover in palletizing roles exceeded 60%, creating constant recruiting and training cycles and forcing the company to frequently rely on temporary labor to keep production moving.
Says Kane, “Every package that we put on the pallets was hand-stacked, and finding people was difficult, especially during COVID.”
The challenge affected the entire production line. When palletizing fell behind, upstream equipment had to stop, reducing productivity and increasing operational stress on the floor. In some cases, operators had to leave their primary stations to help stack cases, further disrupting production.
As the company prepared to install a new K-cup production line, leadership began to rethink the end of the line. “We asked ourselves, if we were going to invest what ended up being millions of dollars into this production line, we should probably consider why we were going to do what we’d always done, which was put a person at the end to palletize these little boxes,” he says.
Finding a flexible palletizing solution
Cascade explored several approaches before settling on Robotiq’s palletizing system. Conventional robotic palletizers were familiar to the team but came with drawbacks for the application. Large industrial systems typically require safety guarding, specialized programming expertise, and a significant footprint on the production floor. For a co-packing operation that frequently changes SKUs and pallet patterns, that lack of flexibility and the longer deployment timelines associated with traditional robotics were major concerns.
The company also evaluated mechanical pallet-handling options, including pallet lifters and pneumatic systems, but those alternatives did not meet Cascade’s operational requirements or provide the adaptability needed for its high-mix production environment.
Cobots offered a different approach. The Robotiq palletizing solution uses modular components built around cobots from Universal Robots that allow the system to operate safely near conveyors without extensive guarding. Its compact footprint also made it easier to integrate the palletizers into Cascade’s existing production lines.
The cobot palletizers stacks cases in consistent, programmed patterns, creating stable loads that reduce palletizing errors and rework compared with manual stacking.Robotiq
Because collaborative robots are designed for adaptability, they offered the level of flexibility Cascade needed for its high-mix production environment. The cobot palletizers allow operators to quickly modify pallet patterns through an intuitive interface and restart the system after interruptions without complex reprogramming. This ease of adjustment also simplifies training, enabling experienced operators to show new employees how to run the system in just a few minutes.
Cobot palletizing systems also incorporate design features that support efficient operation. In Cascade’s case, coordinated motion between the robot arm and a seventh axis helps reduce palletizing cycle time, enabling the cobot to keep pace with the company’s packaging lines. The system’s fixed-mast design provides rigidity and durability while requiring minimal maintenance. In addition, the palletizers can stack loads to heights of 108 inches, allowing Cascade to maximize pallet density and improve transportation efficiency.
From pilot to plant-wide deployment
Cascade Coffee began its cobot palletizing journey with a single installation tied to the launch of a new K-cup production line. What started as a cautious test quickly became the proving ground for a broader automation strategy.
Installation moved quickly. Mechanical setup, software programming, and operator training were completed in roughly three days. A Robotiq engineer was on-site to help guide the initial deployment and coach Cascade’s team through the process, ensuring the company could eventually manage programming and future applications independently.
For Kane, the simplicity of the system was immediately apparent. “It was programmed very, very simply,” he says. “They were teaching our engineer and our mechanics the simplicity of the user interface and how you could design a pallet configuration on the fly.”
Operators adapted quickly as well. The collaborative design allowed employees to work alongside the robot safely and understand its functions without specialized programming skills. Once employees saw how the robot responded to unexpected conditions, such as malformed boxes or conveyor interruptions, they became comfortable working near the system.
The early support from Robotiq also helped Cascade’s team quickly gain confidence with the technology. “We stayed in touch with Robotiq and got some of the first applications they pushed out,” says Kane. “We put that in very quickly because Dennis [Dennis Stickles, director of engineering and IT] was confident he could deal with the software.”
After the first system proved its value, Cascade quickly moved beyond the initial installation. Additional palletizers were soon added to the company’s retail bag lines, with several units deployed within a matter of weeks. Because the engineering team was already familiar with the system, subsequent deployments were even faster. In some cases, new palletizers were installed and running by the end of the first shift after delivery.
Automation delivers measurable results
Following installation of the cobot palletizers, Cascade’s end-of-line operations have been transformed. Production lines that once struggled with bottlenecks now run at significantly higher speeds. The slowest line palletizes roughly 2,500 cases per day, while the fastest reaches about 6,500, with plans to push output even higher.
The system’s flexibility also fits the realities of co-manufacturing. “As a co-manufacturer for coffee, the speed with which we can switch on-the-fly between 400 individual SKUs and dozens of pallet configurations has been a real game-changer,” Kane says.
Automation has improved consistency of pallet stacks as well. With robotic palletizing, cases are stacked according to programmed patterns every time, eliminating many of the errors that previously required rework when they were stacked incorrectly.
With cobot palletizing handling repetitive stacking tasks, employees at the coffee co-packing facility have moved into more skilled roles while enjoying safer, less physically demanding work.Robotiq
Employee safety and morale has also improved. Some operators are just glad their manual palletizing days are behind them. For others, the elimination of hand stacking meant they could advance into highly technical jobs that pay better, a phenomenon that’s been instrumental in increasing the minimum wage at the facility. Employees who started on a temp basis as “end liners” are now working as “mid-liners,” building their technical skills and earning more.
The robots have even become part of the plant’s day-to-day culture. “The cobots have become part of the personality of the factory,” shares Kane. “One of the cobots actually gets a beard, a Santa hat, and eyes every Christmas and goes on our LinkedIn page.”
Financial gains exceed expectations
Financially, the project delivered even stronger results than expected. Cascade initially projected a return on investment of less than two years for the first palletizer. After deployment, actual results came much faster—just nine months, according to Kane.
Several factors drove the improved payback. Production volumes grew, uptime exceeded expectations, and the company was able to reduce its reliance on temporary labor for palletizing tasks. “In the three years we’ve had the robots, I can count on one hand the number of days that we’ve lost for any individual robot,” says Kane.
The reliability of the systems helped eliminate a problem that had previously been common with manual palletizing: rework caused by incorrectly stacked cases or labeling errors. With robotic palletizing, cases are placed according to programmed patterns every time, reducing mistakes and ensuring pallets leave the facility correctly configured for distribution.
Because the cobots operate consistently with minimal downtime, Cascade does not need to schedule additional labor to account for potential stoppages. That reliability, combined with increased throughput on the packaging lines, accelerated the payback period beyond the company’s original projections.
The strong results also helped justify expanding the technology across the facility. After the first palletizer proved successful, Cascade quickly deployed additional units on its retail packaging lines. Once the team gained experience with the system, subsequent installations became routine and carried far less operational risk.
Building an automation culture
Today cobot palletizing is embedded in Cascade Coffee’s operations and strategy. The company continues to explore additional robotics and automation opportunities, building on the success of its first deployments and evaluating solutions that could eventually automate palletizing on lines that are not currently compatible with the cobot systems, including clubstore packaging and heavier bag formats.
For Kane, the biggest lesson extends beyond productivity metrics. Advising manufacturers considering automation, he says, “The thing that’s important is to make sure you don’t minimize the cultural impact it’s going to have on your factory, and you talk to folks before the cobots start to come in. It’s not a job elimination tool. It’s a tool to get rid of the one task that nobody wants to do that’s tough to hire for.”
By focusing on safety, flexibility, and employee development, Cascade turned a difficult end-of-line operation into a reliable, automated process that supports both growth and workforce engagement. PW
