Eliminating Criss-Cross Forklift Movement Through Robotic Palletizing and Automated Intralogistics

How a multi-line manufacturing plant changed the way finished pallets move from packaging to dispatch

1. Executive Summary

At a manufacturing plant with several packaging lines, finished pallets were built by hand and collected by forklift. Each line had its own pickup point, but all pallets eventually had to reach shared wrapping, staging and dispatch areas. During busy shifts, forklifts crossed one another’s routes and moved through spaces used by operators and other staff.

The customer asked Alligator Automations to address the safety risk created by this traffic. The resulting solution connected robotic palletizing cells at the lines to a guarded pallet conveyor network. Pallets now follow a defined route through checking, wrapping and labelling to a central collection point. Forklift work remains at dispatch, away from the packaging halls.

The project changed more than pallet handling. It replaced a series of driver-dependent trips with a controlled material flow across the plant.

2. Background & Operational Context

The customer runs multiple packaging lines side by side. They operate on the same shift schedule and send finished goods to a common dispatch area.

Previously, operators stacked packs onto pallets beside each line. Once a pallet was full, they called a forklift to collect it. The driver entered the working area, moved the pallet to a shared wrapper, and then took it to staging or dispatch. A pallet could be picked up and set down more than once before it left the plant.

This arrangement had grown around individual lines. It worked as a way to move finished goods, but as output from several lines converged, the shared aisles became increasingly busy. Pallet movement also depended on a driver being available at the moment a line needed one.

3. Challenge & Problem Definition 

The problem was not any single forklift. It was that forklifts serving different lines were using the same aisles at the same time.

The lines sat in different parts of the hall, but they all sent pallets to the same wrappers, the same staging area and the same dispatch bay. Each line’s route had been worked out on its own. Put together, they crossed each other.

That criss-cross pattern created a set of risks:

• forklifts meeting each other at junctions, with the load blocking the driver’s forward view
• vehicles moving through the working zone where operators, QA staff and technicians were on foot
• blind spots at corners, behind stacked pallets and at the ends of machines
• congestion at exactly the times output was highest, when several lines finished pallets together
• hand-built pallets leaning or shedding packs, sometimes needing to be rebuilt on the floor
• flow depending on whether a driver was available, so nobody could predict when a pallet would move

Because the routes were improvised, the crossing points moved from shift to shift. The hazard could not be fixed by marking one intersection, because the intersections were never in the same place twice.

The EHS team had already done what it could — speed limits, marked walkways, mirrors, driver training. Those controls manage the exposure. They do not remove it. The next step was to stop vehicles and people needing to share the space at all, and that is an engineering change.

4. Project Objectives & Success Criteria

The customer needed finished pallets to move from every packaging line to dispatch without routine forklift collection inside the production halls.

That meant building pallets consistently at the lines, releasing them without waiting for a driver and carrying them on a defined route. The route had to handle pallets from multiple lines, keep pedestrian access clear and present loads at a practical point for dispatch.

The objective was not to eliminate every forklift. Vehicles were still needed for work such as truck loading. The aim was to keep that work away from the line-side areas where people and vehicles had been sharing space.

5. Site Analysis & Engineering Constraints

Alligator’s team examined how pallets actually moved across the plant before selecting the system layout. The assessment covered line-end space, production rates, pallet completion frequency and the routes drivers used, including empty return trips and shortcuts. It also considered where operators, QA and maintenance staff walked, along with emergency exits, cleaning requirements, drains, power and dispatch needs.

The assessment showed that the short trips to collect pallets from individual lines were central to the traffic problem. Forklifts approached pallets from different parts of the hall and converged on shared areas. Moving those pallets automatically to one collection point would remove the need for repeated line-side pickups.

The layout shaped the conveyor design. Where the route crossed a pedestrian walkway, pallets would travel overhead. Where conveyors ran at floor level, they would be guarded.

6. Solution Strategy & System Architecture

Alligator supplied a robotic palletizing cell at each line and connected the cells to a shared pallet conveyor network.

At the end of each packaging line, a robot picks packs from the conveyor and stacks them according to a stored pattern for the SKU. An automatic magazine supplies empty pallets. When a load is complete, it leaves the cell on a conveyor rather than waiting for a forklift.

The conveyor network carries pallets from the separate cells onto a common route. Accumulation sections hold loads when the route ahead is occupied. Transfer units change their direction, and controlled merge sections manage pallets arriving from different lines. Pallets then pass through checking, stretch wrapping and labelling before reaching discharge conveyors at the central collection area.

Forklift drivers collect pallets at dispatch for racking or truck loading. They no longer need to visit each packaging line to collect completed loads.

7. Engineering & Customization

The system had to do more than connect machines with conveyors. It needed to manage the moments when several lines finished pallets close together, while maintaining access and separation across a working plant.

• Pallet patterns for different products. Each robotic cell builds loads to a stored pattern. The selected pattern follows the SKU running on that line, helping maintain a consistent pallet configuration across shifts.
• Automatic empty-pallet supply. Magazines feed empty pallets into the cells, removing the routine task of positioning each pallet by hand.
• Guarded palletizing cells. Fencing, interlocked doors and guarded pallet exits separate the robot’s working area from operators while the cell runs.
• Accumulation and controlled merging. Conveyor buffers hold completed pallets when another load is using the main route. Merge sections control when pallets from each line enter it.
• Transfers between conveyor routes. Transfer units turn pallets between conveyor axes without a vehicle taking them through the hall.
• Walkway crossings. The conveyor travels overhead where it crosses a pedestrian route. Floor-level sections are fenced along the transport path.
• Checks and finishing within the flow. A checking station identifies out-of-shape pallets before they continue. Stretch wrapping and labelling take place in line, avoiding a separate forklift journey to a shared wrapper.
• One dispatch collection point. Discharge conveyors present finished pallets in order at a central area, giving drivers a defined place to collect them.

The guiding principle was straightforward: where people walk, pallets should not travel at floor level through the same open space.

8. Implementation, Integration & Commissioning

The installation brought together the line conveyors, robotic palletizing cells, empty-pallet magazines, pallet conveyor network, checking station, wrapper, labeller and dispatch conveyors.

These elements had to operate as one system. A completed pallet needed a release path; a busy route needed space to hold the next load; and merge points needed to manage requests from multiple lines. Product changes also needed to call up the correct pallet pattern and keep the pallet’s line, SKU and batch information available through to dispatch.

Commissioning covered the full journey from pack pickup to final collection. This included pallet building, guarded exits, accumulation, transfers, merges, overhead crossings, checking, wrapping, labelling and discharge. Assessing the entire route mattered because the original problem arose between the lines and dispatch, not within a single machine.

9. Results & Business Impact

The clearest change is how pallets leave the packaging lines. Previously, each completed load triggered a forklift trip into the working area. Now it enters a controlled conveyor route that takes it toward dispatch.

 Before vs. After Material Flow

BEFORE

AFTER

For safety, the change removes the repeated line-side forklift trips that created crossing routes in the packaging halls. Guarded and overhead conveyors provide a separate path for pallets, while manual lifting and stacking at the lines are eliminated.

For operations, pallet release no longer depends on a driver arriving at each line. Loads follow stored patterns, move through in-line finishing and reach a single collection area. Conveyor accumulation provides a place for pallets to wait when the main route is busy, instead of leaving completed loads in open-floor staging.

The supplied project account describes these changes but does not provide measured incident, damage or throughput figures. Those outcomes should only be stated numerically if confirmed by the customer’s records.

10. Conclusion & Key Takeaways

This project began with a safety concern about forklifts in the packaging halls. The site assessment showed that the traffic pattern came from the way every line sent finished pallets through shared space.

Robotic palletizing improved how loads were built, but the connected conveyor network addressed how they moved. It gave pallets a fixed, controlled path to dispatch and moved routine forklift collection out of the production halls.

The key takeaways are:

• Review the complete route from packaging line to dispatch when forklift traffic is the concern.
• Design for pallets released by several lines at the same time.
• Separate pallet transport from pedestrian routes through guarding and overhead crossings.
• Keep necessary vehicle work in a defined collection and dispatch area.
• Assess the palletizer, conveyors and dispatch point as one connected system.

A faster line is a productivity gain. A predictable one is a safety control.