Universal Robots Debuts Collaborative Robots at NPE, Transforming Plastic Packaging

Universal Robots of Denmark, a pioneer in collaborative robotics, made its debut at the 2026 NPE, bringing a new wave of automation to plastics manufacturers. With three U.S. regional offices, the company focused on educating attendees about how collaborative robots—or “cobots”—can relieve workers from repetitive pick‑and‑place duties while adapting to shifting production lines.

Brian Dillman, area sales manager for Universal Robots (UR), highlighted the industry pain points: tight labor markets, constantly evolving line configurations, and the relentless drive to reduce overhead. He emphasized that UR’s cobots offer a cost‑effective, easy‑to‑program solution that directly addresses these challenges.

A key advantage of the cobots is their safety profile. Sean Dotson, president and CEO of RND Automation & Engineering—a UR partner showcasing its new Kanga Poucher in the UR booth (S27189)—noted that the robots “reduce or eliminate the need for guarding, resulting in a significantly smaller footprint. They stop safely on operator contact and can be moved with minimal force.” The Kanga system is a vertical form/fill/seal pouching solution that creates four‑sided pouches for medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and durable goods, with a UR cobot feeding products directly into the line.

Another demonstration featured a bulk box loader from Dyco Inc., a specialist in automated systems for handling plastic bottles. The guardless UR cobot picks up rows of bottles by their necks from a conveyor and transfers them into boxes or trays. Dyco’s design allows an operator to remove a fully packed box while the cobot begins the next cycle, all controlled from the cobot interface. The modular setup can be relocated between multiple blow‑molding lines that handle various bottle and box sizes.

Additional showcases of UR cobots at NPE included:

• Cold Jet (Booth W483) using a UR cobot to clean automotive mirrors with dry‑ice blasting.
• Proco Machinery Inc. (Booth W983) deploying UR cobots in its new collaborative Half‑Cube Palletizer system and Robot‑Packer, both designed for blow‑molded containers.