DCS Engineers Automated Mixed-Bag Palletizing Solution for Pet Food Retail Replenishment

Pet food and other retail distribution centers face a uniquely punishing fulfillment challenge. They build mixed-SKU store pallets by hand from bulky, heavy bags of kibble, litter, and other goods weighing up to 50 pounds apiece. The physical toll of repetitive lifting, bending, and twisting drives ergonomic injuries and warehouse associate turnover. Further, manually sequencing bags to match a store’s planogram slows replenishment and risks damaged, leaking product.

Designed Conveyor Systems (DCS) engineered an automated solution to tackle this challenge. The system combines autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), robotic arms with AI-guided vision systems, and its proprietary warehouse execution system (WES), DATUM. It builds stable, store-ready mixed pallets of bagged pet food without any human handling of the bags themselves. This frees associates for safer, higher-value work.

The Challenge

Manually building pallets that mix different stock keeping units (SKUs) is one of the most physically demanding jobs in a distribution center. Pet food and other operations handling heavy bags of product feel this acutely. Bagged dry kibble, cat litter, and other bulk pet products are routinely packaged in 10- to 50-pound bags. Typically, warehouse associates build these mixed pallets by hand. However, that means they also absorb the ergonomic strain of lifting, bending, and twisting through an entire shift.

The difficulty compounds because these pallets can’t simply be stacked for stability. The warehouse must build them in a specific sequence that mirrors each store’s planogram. This allows store associates to unload and restock shelves efficiently without doubling back down the aisle. A misaligned or poorly balanced pallet slows down store replenishment. Additionally, it increases the risk that a bag splits or shifts in transit, spilling kibble, litter, or other granular product. That creates both waste and a cleanup hazard.

Conventional palletizing automation and multi-axis robotic palletizing have handled uniform carton loads for two decades. However, building a truly mixed pallet — varying bag dimensions, weights, shapes, and contents, sequenced to a planogram — has been far harder to automate. For pet food retailers, the business case for solving this goes beyond a strict return on investment (ROI) timeline. Instead, it’s fundamentally about improving warehouse associate safety and reducing the turnover that comes with physically punishing, repetitive manual labor.

The Solution

DCS designed an automated palletizing solution purpose-built for mixed, bagged pet food replenishment. The system combines several proven technologies into a single orchestrated work cell layout. It includes AMRs, robotic arms with vacuum end effectors, autonomous overhead gantry crane systems, AI- and machine learning (ML)-enabled vision systems, DATUM WES, automatic print-and-apply labeling, and automatic stretch wrapping.

AMRs and Gantry Cranes Handle Every Bag of Kibble and Litter

In the DCS-engineered layout, both source inventory pallets of bagged pet food and outbound store pallets sit on low racks. AMRs tunnel underneath the racks, lift them slightly off the floor, and transport them wherever the process requires. Associates stage source inventory — cases and bags of kibble, litter, and other bulk pet products — in rows. The zone spans eight separate work cells, each equipped with its own gantry crane, arranged four to a side along a central aisle staged with outbound pallets.

Each gantry crane carries a robotic arm fitted with vacuum end effectors and an integrated vision system. Directed by DATUM, which orchestrates the entire process, the crane travels back and forth over the inventory pallets. Its on-board vision system detects and reads data tags and pinpoints the exact position of each bag on the source pallet to ensure a precise pick.

Integrated AI middleware continuously analyzes the vision data. That allows the robotic arm make minute adjustments as it places each bag of pet food onto the outbound mixed pallet. The result? A process that resembles playing a real-world game of Tetris with bags of kibble and litter instead of blocks.

The system decides where each bag belongs based on its dimensions. Simultaneously, it follows the sequential layout of the destination store’s planogram. This ensures the finished pallet unloads in the same order store associates walk the aisle. Once a pallet is complete, an AMR moves it to an automatic stretch wrapper to secure the load. Next, an automatic print-and-apply labeler tags it. Finally, another AMR then delivers an empty pallet to the vacated spot, and the cycle repeats. No associate ever lifts a bag.

DATUM Keeps Every Work Cell Fed and Moving

Because DATUM controls the distribution of picks across all eight work cells, it also anticipates when each cell will need replenishment. It stays several waves ahead, staging incoming pallets of bagged pet food in a nearby buffer zone and dynamically slotting them into cells as capacity opens up. AMRs handle that replenishment automatically. They also remove empty pallets once product picks are complete.

At peak productivity, the system builds approximately 28 mixed pallets per hour of store-ready pet food product. It is flexible and scalable enough to accommodate different inventory slotting schemes (mixed or mirrored) per work cell. Although this system is not in a fully dark distribution center, no human intervention is necessary anywhere in the pick-to-pallet process.

Building the Business Case for Automated Pet Food Palletizing

The primary driver behind this kind of automation investment is associate safety and retention, not payback period. Removing bagged pet food from manual handling eliminates the repetitive bending, lifting, and twisting that drives ergonomic injuries. Further, it significantly lowers associated workers’ compensation costs and the retraining that comes with high turnover in a physically demanding role.

The benefits carry through to the store level. By building each pallet to match the store’s planogram, store associates unload and restock shelves by walking the aisle in sequence, with no backtracking. Automated pallets are also more neatly assembled and better balanced than hand-built ones. Therefore, associates have an easier time maneuvering them through narrow store aisles without bags sliding or shifting.

Deft, Targeted Handling Keeps Product Safe

The automation’s consistent, predictable pace and dedicated work cell configuration further improve process reliability and uniformity. Guided by their vision systems, each gantry crane’s robotic arm and vacuum grippers pick up every bag in the optimal orientation to prevent damage. This meaningfully reduces the wasted product and cleanup that comes with a torn bag of kibble, litter, or other bulk pet food spilling across a pallet or trailer.

The Results

By automating mixed-bag palletizing, pet food retailers can build store-ready, planogram-sequenced pallets without exposing warehouse associates to the ergonomic strain of manually lifting 10- to 50-pound bags all shift long. That translates into fewer ergonomic injuries, lower workers’ compensation exposure, and better associate retention.

Store-level replenishment benefits too. Planogram-matched pallets let store associates restock shelves faster and with less backtracking. Meanwhile, more stable, better-balanced loads reduce the risk of bags shifting, splitting, or spilling kibble, litter, and other granular product in transit. At approximately 28 pallets per hour with no human intervention required in the pick-to-pallet process, the solution frees associates to be reassigned to safer, higher-value tasks elsewhere in the facility.

Moreover, the work cell layout is flexible and scalable. That enables it to accommodate varied inventory slotting schemes as SKU mixes and store assortments change. With the system, retailers of pet food and other bagged merchandise gain a scalable foundation that grows with the business.

DCS works with pet food and other bulk-bagged goods retailers to apply this same combination of AMRs, robotic picking, AI vision, and WES orchestration to their own mixed-SKU replenishment challenges.

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About DCS

Headquartered in Franklin, Tenn., Designed Conveyor Systems (DCS) has nearly 45 years of experience serving major clients in multiple industries by providing material handling, full-scale warehouse operations, and conveyor design solutions that are custom crafted for their needs. DCS does not sell ready-made conveyor systems but builds relationships that empower collaboration to craft custom warehouse designs together. DCS utilizes consulting, engineering design, project management, installation services, and client support to ensure our customers can keep their promises to deliver on time.