Show, Don’t Tell: How to Pick a Gantry-Style Palletizing Kit

Festo introduced its FPaKit, a gantry-style palletizing package, at Pack Expo Las Vegas 2025. Festo said this feature-rich, high-performance solution will cost-effectively help expand the automated palletizing market.

Machine builders will find that the FPaKit, characterized as a “gantry palletizer in a box,” is fully loaded with preset, sized and assembled axes and motors (Z-axis motor, including a brake), multiprotocol servo drives, hybrid controller with pre-installed palletizing software, cables, software license, and user interface.

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Machine builders select an FPaKit by load capacity: 44 lb (20 kg) for the LW2x kit, 66 lb (30 kg) for the LW3x kit, and up to 110 lb (50 kg) for the MW4x customized kit. These palletizers feature speeds of 4 to 10 boxes per minute.

Cory Knight, business development manager for handling systems at Festo U.S., demonstrated the palletizing solution by way of a success story. He said CODI Manufacturing (Littleton, Colo.) worked with Festo to install a new line of gantry palletizers, Flex Stack, which is based on the FPaKit.

The machine concept was developed about a year ago after multiple customers approached Festo with the need for palletizing and depalletizing capabilities, but without having to design custom-engineered solutions with each application. The partnership with CODI Manufacturing, a machine builder, ensured the entire cell could be developed using only standard components.

The process, from design, engineering, fabrication and assembly, took about six months. “Now we have a fully modular solution that can be easily adapted for different numbers of cases and varying case sizes,” said Knight.

A Palletizing System Designed with Standard Components

CODI’s palletizing cell set up in the Festo booth was a demonstration of the Flex Stack Pro series, an MW4x custom FPaKit, configured as a palletizer/de-palletizer.

“We also integrated Festo servo motors and drives, which are multi-protocol devices capable of communicating over Ethernet/IP, EtherCAT and PROFINET using the same hardware,” explained Knight. “An edge controller and AI are used to enable predictive maintenance, along with extensive condition monitoring and diagnostics for the end-of-arm tooling.”

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Each suction cup on the tool features its own diagnostic capability to detect wear and the system includes decentralized vacuum generation within the end-of-arm tool.

Knight said the standard handling system comes fully accessorized with sensors, energy chains, cables and tubing so that the system is ready to deploy straight out of the crate.

According to CODI, the Flex Stack gantry-style palletizers compare in price to cobot palletizers and will deliver higher performance and a lower total cost of ownership. ROI in one year is achievable for operations switching from labor-intensive palletizing to an automated Flex Stack option, according to the company.

From Motion Control to Diagnostics to Software to ROI

Another standout feature of the setup was that a Cartesian robot used to do the motion control with six axes for four-axis articulated robots. “[They] oftentimes have a very large footprint and are very expensive to integrate,” said Knight. “Also, the maintenance on those types of systems is quite high and it requires a highly skilled technician to be able to service the robot. Whereas, with this solution, it could be easily scaled. It’s a lower-cost solution and has a more conventional maintenance structure based on what plants are used to seeing daily.”

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Knight pointed out that the system offers both local and global diagnostics, along with comprehensive condition monitoring. “We’re sending a large amount of data, including predictive maintenance insights and system status, directly to the cloud,” he said. “This allows you to monitor the machine’s performance and status from anywhere in the world. Our edge controller enables this connectivity, giving users exceptional flexibility and real-time monitoring capabilities on a daily basis.”

The solution also features Festo’s palletizing software. This was an optional software layer that could be added to the machine’s controls. The software makes it easy to build stack patterns efficiently using a web browser. It allows customers to create multiple stack patterns and configurations without extensive programming.

Overall, said Knight, it’s a powerful tool that can be added as an option to provide precise functionality specifically for palletizing.