Mixed Load Palletising – How to Automate Complex and Variable Load Patterns

For decades, the humble pallet has been a much-loved and integral part of logistics operations from bustling warehouses and distribution centres to high-output manufacturing plants. What must be trillions of products have, over the years, been stacked and unstacked as part of traditional methods of moving large volumes of goods in the most efficient way possible.

However, with the need for greater efficiency, increased safety, and availability of labour dwindling with little sign of this downward trend being reversed, the ability to automate the process of stacking products onto pallets is becoming essential to achieve these vital operational goals. Add to this that consumer demands grow more complex, and SKU variety is exploding in response to trends and desire for consumables, traditional methods are struggling to keep pace.

This is where we find palletising and, more specifically, mixed load palletising, offering an innovative approach to modern palletising tasks that brings new opportunities for how businesses automate the handling of diverse product loads. In this article, we look at the various ways mixed load palletising can transform operations, making them efficient, streamlined, safer, and more agile, ready to tackle the challenges ahead.

Introduction to Palletising

Palletising is the process of stacking products or items onto a pallet for storage or transportation. It’s a critical final step in the packaging process, ensuring that goods are optimally arranged for safe handling, shipping, and warehousing. Historically, this has been done manually or with simple entry-level automation for uniform product lines.

Manual Handling Challenges for Operators

Manual palletising, especially in environments with high product diversity, poses several key challenges for operators, such as:

Robot Palletising in Warehouse Automation

Labour-intensive

Repetitive, physically demanding work can lead to fatigue and injury.

Inefficiency

Manual methods slow down operations, especially when dealing with a wide range of product shapes and product sizes.

Inaccuracy

Inconsistent stacking can cause instability, leading to unstable pallets, product damage or rejected shipments.

Labour shortages

With growing demand and workforce shortages across the UK, especially post-Brexit, many facilities are struggling to find skilled operators.

These globally felt pressures are pushing an increasing number of organisations towards robotic solutions as a reliable and scalable answer to their operational challenges.

What Is a Palletiser?

A palletiser is a machine designed to automatically stack products onto a pallet. They come in a number of different forms, including in-line palletisers that use a continuous motion to arrange products into rows, and robotic palletisers that use robotic arms with grippers and advanced arm tooling to pick and place products directly onto the pallets. Traditional palletisers handle uniform loads, such as cases of bottled drinks or identical cartons, using programmed stacking patterns. They are fast, reliable, and reduce the physical burden on human workers.

Key Benefits of Palletisers

Speed and consistency in stacking

Reduced labour costs and increased safety

Improved load integrity and stability, leading to fewer damaged goods

Scalability to support increasing throughput and a wide range of product types

However, traditional palletisers are primarily tasked with handling uniform goods and often do not have the integrated technology or capability required to manage variable or mixed pallets.

What Is Mixed Load Palletising?

Growing in popularity due to the sheer volume of SKU handling needed to cope with today’s consumer needs, mixed load palletising refers to the automation of palletising tasks where the load consists of a variety of different product types, sizes, shapes, and weights – often in the same palletising cycle. Rather than stacking identical boxes, the system must intelligently place differing items in a way that maintains center of gravity and packing efficiency.

What Are Variable Load Patterns?

Variable load patterns arise when pallets must be built from products with differing factors such as dimensions (height, width, depth), weights, fragility, stacking preferences or restrictions (e.g. heavy items on the bottom, fragile goods on top), and SKU combinations required by retailers or customers. These variable patterns are common in industries where orders are tailored or consumer choice is vast, leading to mixed case pallets being a common solution.

Why Is Mixed Load Palletising Ideal for Complex Load Patterns?

Mixed load palletisers use a combination of advanced technologies, including vision systems, robotic technology, AI, and powerful software solutions, to identify, assess, and handle products individually and arrange them in the most stable and space-optimised manner. These robotic systems create stable pallets that improve load integrity and enable safer transportation.

This makes them suitable for handling high SKU variability, customised or store-specific pallet configurations, frequent changeovers without downtime, and distribution environments requiring a high level of flexibility.

Industry Applications

Due to its adaptability and reliability for stacking a wide variety of goods, mixed load palletising is increasingly being adopted across several UK industries, including:

Layer palletising

Palletising solutions to improve productivity - L-A-C Logistics Automation

Retail and Grocery

With the rise of store-friendly deliveries, retailers require pallets to be compiled with product sets tailored to individual store layouts. Mixed load systems enable these complex combinations at scale while conserving floor space and improving warehouse operations.

Food and Beverage

High product turnover and SKU proliferation in chilled and ambient food sectors often require frequent pallet configuration changes. Automation helps manage diverse box types, weights, and stacking needs of this dynamic industry, improving the entire process and adjacent operations.

E-commerce

Order profiles typically vary greatly in the e-commerce sector. Mixed load palletising enables efficient, automated handling of variable cartons, packages, and formats, which are ideal for order consolidation in fragmented space within distribution centres.

Pharmaceutical and Health Products

Often dealing with sensitive, fragile, and varied packaging types, these sectors benefit from the precision and control that mixed load palletising solutions provide, ensuring operations meet regulatory pharmaceutical compliance and strict safety standards.

Supporting Technologies for a Turnkey Solution

To fully leverage the benefits of mixed load palletising, integration with other systems provides the opportunity to fully automate logistics operations, from material handling solutions, storage and order picking to packaging and dispatch. Some of the main automation technologies that offer a comprehensive automation solution include:

Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems that coordinate inbound storage and outbound goods.
Conveyor systems, such as those developed by LAC Conveyors, which manage the flow of products on pallets and ensure sequencing.
Vision and scanning systems that identify product sizes and barcodes in real time for accurate warehouse management.
Integrated pallet wrapping and labelling systems that finalise pallet preparation.

Intelligent software systems bring another level of efficiency, insights and strategic decision-making to the turnkey solution. For example, WMS and ERP integration align pallet configurations with order systems, while AI enables dynamic decision-making on stacking patterns based on live data. These adaptable solutions are key to solving the Pallet Loading Problem and optimising the stacking process.

Combining innovative and intelligent hardware and software, the overall pallet system provides a fully automated, high-throughput, and intelligent end-of-line solution that can be adapted to any industry sector’s needs.

Why UK Businesses Are Turning to Mixed Load Palletising for Smarter, Safer Fulfilment

For UK businesses facing growing SKU counts, rising labour costs, and increasing pressure for agile pallet construction and delivery, mixed load palletising offers an optimal solution. By automating complex and variable load patterns, companies can increase throughput, improve worker safety, and meet the demands of today’s ever-changing industrial landscape.

Adopting a mixed load palletising system that is integrated with smart warehousing technologies offers not only a robust and reliable upgrade to existing operations, but it is also a strategic investment to maintain and enhance both supply chain resilience and customer satisfaction.