Odecopack designs, builds and commissions turnkey custom automation solutions for packaging and manufacturing lines — robotic cells, end-of-arm tooling, controls, safety and vision, delivered under one contract. We are a FANUC Authorized System Integrator with more than 30 years in the packaging industry.
Everything below describes how we actually scope and run these projects, including the cases where we would tell you not to build one.
Custom automation is a production system engineered for one company's specific product and process, instead of selected from a catalog. In practice a custom automation system combines robotics, end-of-arm tooling, PLC controls, machine safety and sometimes vision into a single cell, designed around four things: what the product is, how much it varies, what rate you have to hold, and what is already installed on either side of the new equipment.
That last point is the one most often underestimated. A custom cell rarely fails because the robot was wrong. It fails because the product was less consistent than anyone admitted, because the changeover nobody scoped turned out to take forty minutes, or because the cell was dropped into a line that could not feed it. We spend the first phase of every project on those questions specifically.
Odecopack builds these systems as a FANUC Authorized System Integrator, with mechanical, electrical and robotics engineers in house. Concept, detailed engineering, fabrication, panel build, programming, factory testing, installation and commissioning all sit under one contract, which means there is no seam for a problem to fall through.
Our custom automation engineering capabilities cover seven disciplines, combined differently for each production process. Most turnkey systems use four or five of them.
FANUC articulated and SCARA robots selected against your payload, reach and cycle time, then programmed, guarded and integrated with the rest of the line. As an Authorized System Integrator we specify, program and support the robot directly instead of subcontracting the part of the cell that matters most.
Robot classes and applicationsThe gripper usually decides whether a cell works. We design and manufacture EOAT in house — vacuum, mechanical, magnetic or combined, including 3D-printed tooling shaped to one specific product — so an awkward, fragile or inconsistent part is handled the way it actually needs to be handled.
Omron, Allen-Bradley and equivalent platforms, integrated over EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT and whatever your plant already runs. New cells get a controls architecture your maintenance team can read; retrofits get integrated into the one you already have rather than parked beside it.
Integrating a whole linePanels are built and wired in house, and every system we deliver ships with a full electrical schematic package. That is not paperwork for its own sake — it is the difference between your electrician clearing a fault in an hour and your line waiting for us to fly someone out.
Inside a control panelGuarding, light curtains, safety relays and safety-rated controls, specified against a risk assessment for the cell rather than copied from the last job. We also retrofit safety onto existing machinery that predates the standards it now has to meet.
Servo-driven axes for indexing, positioning, transfer and gantry motion, used where a robot is the wrong tool. On repetitive single-axis work a servo is often faster, cheaper and simpler for your team to maintain than another articulated arm.
Inspection, orientation, presence checking and vision-guided picking, integrated with the robot instead of bolted alongside it. Vision earns its place when product arrives unpredictably — when it doesn't, we will tell you to spend the money elsewhere.
Not sure which of these your line needs?
That is a normal place to start. Describe the problem and the product, and we will come back with the shortest system that solves it.
Talk to an engineerSix phases, each with something you can actually look at before the next one starts.
We start from the product and the constraint, not from a machine we would like to sell. What is the part, how does it vary, what rate do you need to hold, and what breaks or costs money today. Most bad automation projects are decided here, before anyone draws anything.
A written scope of what the system has to do
A 3D CAD model of the proposed cell, placed on your floor plan with the real obstructions on it, plus a cycle time estimate and an explicit scope of supply. You see what is and is not inside the number before you commit to it.
3D concept, footprint, cycle time, scope of supply
Mechanical design, electrical schematics, controls architecture, safety assessment and bill of materials, released for build by our own mechanical, electrical and robotics engineers. Nothing gets fabricated against a sketch.
Released drawing and schematic package
Fabrication, panel build, assembly, robot programming and dry running in our facility. You watch the cell run your product on our floor before it ships to yours, which is the cheapest possible moment to find a problem.
Factory acceptance run on your product
Rigging, installation, integration with the upstream and downstream equipment that was already there, run-off at rate, and training for the operators and maintenance technicians who have to live with the machine after we leave.
Run-off at rate, operator and maintenance training
Spare parts, preventive maintenance, repairs and later upgrades, handled by US-based technicians. A custom machine is only as good as the support behind it in year three, which is when the original excitement has worn off.
Service agreements, retrofits, spare parts
We sell custom systems, so read the right-hand column with that in mind. It is still the column that saves people the most money.
High SKU counts, seasonal formats and product that does not survive rough handling. The engineering problem is almost always changeover and gentle handling rather than peak speed, and tooling design carries most of the weight.
Co-packers and contract manufacturers change product more often than anyone else in the building. Flexibility, fast format changes and a cell that does not need a specialist to reconfigure it matter more than a headline rate.
Heavier parts, harsher environments and processes that look nothing like a packaging line. These projects lean on robotics, motion control and safety engineering more than on conveying, and they tend to be scoped one at a time.
Tooling, panels, cells and drawings from systems we have designed and built — including a page from the electrical schematic package that ships with every machine.
You do not need all of this to start a conversation. You do need it before anyone can quote a number that means anything, so it is worth gathering early.
Request a quoteIncluding the cost question, which we answer as honestly as a custom scope allows.
