38 n ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATED MANUFACTURING July/August 2026 www.drivesncontrols.com ‘World’s smallest’ pharma palletising cell eases supply bottlenecks If important medications are unavailable, this has a direct impact on the treatment of patients and their quality of life. For this reason, the European Medicines Agency is focusing on a key cause of such shortages – manufacturing and quality problems. A Swiss company has come with a compact cell for palletising injection vials and pre-filled syringes that, it says, will help make pharmaceutical supply chains more robust. Winterthur-based Robotronic believes that its automated cell is the world's smallest and claims that it sets new benchmarks for precision, clock speeds and product protection. The aim is to strengthen the pharmaceutical supply chain in Europe and to shorten delivery times for medicines. Robotronic specialises in robotic applications for the pharmaceutical industry. Its processes include de- and renesting, tray handling, de- and re-palletising, as well as the safe transport of products without breaking any glass. It achieves this with extremely short format changeover times, and aims is to provide low-maintenance technologies with high outputs and the smallest possible space requirements. The new modular cell is designed for series production, even in existing production environments. It will help pharmaceutical companies to stabilise their production capacities, thus avoiding shortages of items such as antibiotics and cancer drugs. According Robotronic’s founder, Mike Weber, faster production is needed to reduce lead times and to cope with rising demand. One of the biggest challenges is the need to comply with strict guidelines. “Pharmaceutical consistency is about more than quality,” says Weber. “It's also about compliance with regulations and the high safety requirements.” This combination makes the task technically challenging. High output is only worthwhile if it can be achieved cleanly, safely and reproducibly. To deliver the required productivity, the cells uses two robots that work closely together at high speed, while ensuring that the sensitive products are not damaged. Robotronic says that it is crucial that speed, precision and product protection are not played off against each other. The easy-to-clean cell has a footprint of 150 x 130cm, and handles pallets in the 120 x 80cm format. It can process up to 600 products per minute, while maintaining a high level of functionality. One of the challenges in designing such a compact cell is for the two robots to work side-by-side without compromising on speed and precision. Robotronic has chosen Mitsubishi’s FR flexible compact robots that are equipped with a technology called SoftTouch that avoids glass-to-glass contact and possible breakages. If needed, several of these robots can move at full speed within millimetres of each other, without colliding. This makes it possible to create cells that move pallets and can process up to 600 items per minute without pushing the robots to their performance limits. “Our FR robots show that high throughput and gentle handling are not mutually exclusive,”remarks Stefan Knauf, who manages Mitsubishi Electric Factory Automation’s German branch. “With an additional servo axis and integrated compliance control, they meet exactly these requirements in a small space.” The jointly developed palletising cell demonstrates that compact robots can help to achieve stable processes, reproducible quality and greater security of supply in a pharmaceutical market where bottlenecks, manufacturing problems and increasing regulatory requirements set the pace. n A Swiss machine-builder has created what it believes is the world’s smallest palletising cell for the pharmaceutical industry. It is intended to strengthen pharmaceutical supply chains and to shorten delivery times for medicines. The two robots in the palletising cell can pass safely within millimetres of each other (Source: Robotronic / Mitsubishi)
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