Automated glass article bundling and palletizing apparatuses and methods

1. An apparatus that forms bundles of glass articles, the apparatus comprising:

a glass article infeed station comprising an infeed conveyor that continuously transports individual glass articles to a layer separating conveyor, the layer separating conveyor comprising a conveyor belt that forms a layer of side-by-side glass articles;

a robotic lift assembly configured to place the layer of side-by-side glass articles together on a layer separation insert, the layer separation insert having side-by-side slots that each receive a single glass article of the layer of side-by-side glass articles; and

a re-pitch station comprising adjustable article retaining regions that adjust position automatically to decrease a distance between adjacent side-by-side glass articles of the layer before the robotic lift assembly places the layer of side-by-side articles together on the layer separation insert.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the robotic lift assembly comprises an end of arm tool that includes glass pick-up devices that are arranged and configured to engage glass articles having different diameters.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the layer separating conveyor comprises the conveyor belt configured to intermittently separate layers of side-by-side glass articles from adjacent layers of side-by-side glass articles.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the robotic lift assembly is configured to stack the layers of side-by-side glass articles forming part of a bundle.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 further comprising a controller that uses a sensor to automatically detect an absence of a glass article from the layer of side-by-side glass articles.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the layer separating conveyor comprises sectioned article retaining regions that are each sized and configured to retain a single glass article spaced from adjacent glass articles.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 further comprising a controller that uses a sensor to automatically detect multiple glass articles in a single article retaining region.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a controller that uses a sensor to automatically identify a preselected number of glass articles in the layer of side-by-side glass articles.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the robotic lift assembly is a first robotic lift assembly, the apparatus comprising a second robotic lift assembly that moves the layer of side-by-side glass articles together from the layer separating conveyor to the re-pitch station.

10. A method of handling glass articles to form bundles of the glass articles, the method comprising:

continuously transporting individual glass articles in the form of glass tubes or rods having a first outer diameter to a layer separating conveyor and forming a first layer of side-by-side glass articles on the layer separating conveyor; and

using a robotic lift assembly, placing the first layer of side-by-side glass articles together on a layer separation insert, the layer separation insert having side-by-side slots that each receive a single glass article of the first layer of side-by-side glass articles; and

automatically decreasing a distance between adjacent side-by-side glass articles of the first layer at a re-pitch station before the step of placing the first layer of side-by-side articles together on the layer separation insert.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

continuously transporting individual glass articles in the form of tubes or rods having a second outer diameter different from the first diameter to the layer separating conveyor and forming a second layer of side-by-side glass articles on the layer separating conveyor; and

using the robotic lift assembly, placing the second layer of side-by-side glass articles together on another layer separation insert, the another layer separation insert having side-by-side slots that each receive a single glass article of the second layer of side-by-side glass articles.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

stacking the first layer of side-by-side glass articles having the first outer diameter on another layer of side-by-side glass articles having the first outer diameter and forming a first bundle; and

stacking the second layer of side-by-side glass articles having the second outer diameter on another layer of side-by-side glass articles having the second outer diameter forming a second bundle;

wherein the first bundle and second bundle have at least one or more of a same width, length and height.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the robotic lift assembly comprises an end of arm tool that includes glass pick-up devices that are arranged and configured to engage the glass articles of the first layer and to move the first layer of side-by-side glass articles when forming a first bundle, the glass pick-up devices arranged and configured to engage glass articles of the second layer and move the second layer of side-by-side articles when forming a second bundle.

14. The method of claim 10 further comprising the layer separating conveyor separating the first layer of side-by-side glass articles from an adjacent layer of side-by-side glass articles.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising the robotic lift assembly stacking the another layer and first layer of side-by-side glass articles and forming part of a bundle.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising wrapping a band around the bundle at a bundle wrapping station.

17. The method of claim 10 further comprising using a sensor, a controller automatically detecting an absence of a glass article from the first layer of side-by-side glass articles.

18. The method of claim 10 , wherein the layer separating conveyor comprises sectioned article retaining regions that are each sized and configured to retain a single glass article spaced from adjacent glass articles.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising, using a sensor, a controller automatically detecting multiple glass articles in a single article retaining region.

20. The method of claim 10 further comprising, using a sensor, a controller automatically identifying a preselected number of glass articles in the first layer of side-by-side glass articles.