FANUC CRX-30iA

What it's for

The FANUC CRX-30iA is the flagship cobot of the CRX series with a 30 kg payload and 1,756 mm of reach; the manufacturer names palletizing as the typical application, including heavy bags and bulk packaging.

The reach matters: it lets you stack taller pallets and cover a larger zone without moving the base. It is the largest cobot in the family, so it handles palletizing of heavier packaging without moving up to a classic fenced industrial robot, which simplifies the hall layout. The robot has internal force sensors in all axes; as across the series, it stops on contact with a person, but at 30 kg and with a fast gripper the risk assessment is especially important “Robot Safety Standards”.

Beyond palletizing, the arm can be used to handle heavy parts at machines and to move semi-finished products in a factory or a warehouse. Choosing the gripper, for example a vacuum one from the OnRobot range, is as important as the arm itself, because the gripper's weight counts against the payload.

Who it's for

Yes: for plants that palletize heavier packaging such as bags, cartons and shrink-wrapped packs and are looking for a solution without classic fencing. Yes for companies with a varied product range, since changing a pallet pattern on a cobot is faster than on a traditional palletizer. Yes for those who want to take heavy, repetitive work off people.

No: for very fast lines that need a dozen or more cycles per minute, where a classic palletizer will be more productive. Not for loads over 30 kg including the gripper. Not for small plants without room for a station with a larger reach. And not for anyone unwilling to carry out a risk assessment: at this payload it can be demanding.

Deployments

We cannot point to any deployment in Poland by customer name. We know that the model is in the offer of the Polish distributor spawalnictwo.pl, but there is no list of actual installations.

What the category looks like: palletizing cobots are becoming standard in food, chemical and logistics plants. The lineup of the family is described in “FANUC CRX: The Cobot Series with 8 Years of Zero Maintenance”, and a comparison of the competing series in “Universal Robots UR5e, UR10e and UR20 Compared”.

The nearest alternatives are the UR30 from Universal Robots, also 30 kg and coming from a different ecosystem, and the Doosan P3020 and Doosan H2515 from Korea's Doosan. Among FANUC's strengths is the 8-year warranty across the series.

Within the FANUC family, the smaller choice is the FANUC CRX-20iA/L, up to 20 kg and sufficient for most cartons. If your loads are always under 20 kg, do not overpay for a larger payload. With such a high payload, ask the integrator for a cycle simulation and for the real weight of the gripper, because it determines how many kilograms of cargo you can actually lift. For loads above 30 kg you have to consider a classic fenced industrial robot.

The CRX-30iA is the largest model in the FANUC CRX family, which the Japanese company from Oshino introduced in 2019. The series has six models and an 8-year warranty. The launch date of the CRX-30iA itself is not stated, so we do not guess; what we know is that it completes the range from the smallest FANUC CRX-3iA through the FANUC CRX-10iA to the 20 kg FANUC CRX-20iA/L. The manufacturer places it at the top of the family as a solution for heavy palletizing. More about the company: FANUC.