Packaging Automation Leaders Announce Strategic Alliance

Packaging Automation Leaders Announce Strategic Alliance

Rethink Robotics and Sonoco Alloyd, a unit of global packaging leader Sonoco (NYSE:SON), have entered into a strategic alliance to deliver complete, innovative manufacturing solutions to Sonoco Alloyd’s packaging customers.

Sonoco Alloyd, a leader in medical and retail package design solutions based in DeKalb, Ill., will incorporate Rethink Robotics’ collaborative robots into their line of sealing machines in order to provide a complete automation solution for their customers. Rethink’s Baxter and Sawyer robots will be sold as part of an integrated part transfer and sealing system through Sonoco Alloyd’s salesforce. The partnership will give Sonoco Alloyd’s manufacturing customers a flexible, adaptable and low-cost solution to more fully automate their custom packaging lines.

"At Sonoco Alloyd, we believe that leveraging the industry’s most advanced collaborative robot technologies, along with our own world-class sealing systems, can provide a unique and complete solution for customers that will deliver real results in a short timeframe," said Jeff Christensen, vice president/general manager of Sonoco Alloyd.

"We are constantly listening to our customers and developing new ways to improve the quality of services and solutions we deliver. Rethink Robotics provides a differentiated technology that we have begun to use in our own factories, and we are now able to pass those innovations on to our customers as well," he concluded.

"As an innovator in its space, Sonoco Alloyd is at the forefront of providing what today’s global manufacturers need to be successful," said Scott Eckert, president and CEO at Rethink Robotics. "Sonoco Alloyd understands that collaborative robots are a big part of the future of manufacturing, and they can offer additional value to the reliable automation they’re already providing to their customers. The combination of these two great product lines is a huge competitive advantage for manufacturers everywhere."

For more information, please visit www.alloyd.com and www.rethinkrobotics.com.