Festo Presents Gantry Palletizing and Fluid Innovations at PACK EXPO

At PACK EXPO 2025, Festo turned heads with a lineup of automation tools that blend industrial punch with cost‑effective design, including a new gantry palletizer that promises “industrial speed at the cost of a cobot,” plus advanced motion control systems, including applications for both industry and education.

Gantry: Industrial Speed at a Lower Cost

One of the biggest draws at Festo’s booth was a cartesian gantry palletizer built by CODI Manufacturing. Designed on the linear electric actuators from the FPaKit series, this gantry is engineered for high throughput: high lift capacities of up to 110 pounds per pick, long Z‑axis strokes, and acceleration and motion speeds that allow up to 10 cycles per minute.

CODI and Festo share a vision of gantry systems as a lower‑cost alternative to traditional six‑axis robotic palletizers. By using standard components, a modular design, and the web browser programming software, system integrators and end users can configure, order, and get the gantry assembled far more quickly and cheaply than many full robot systems.

The high-speed action of a cartesian palletizing system.

Valve Terminals in Automation

Beyond the gantry palletizer and the grippers, Festo demonstrated the VTUX valve terminal system, promising rugged, modular I/O and remote pneumatic valve capabilities. Also making an appearance throughout the displays were the electric and pneumatic motion control packages, servo drives, and the linear and rotary mechatronic systems that can integrate into existing automation infrastructure.

VTUX valve terminals on display with a small indexing system.

Training the Workforce

A branch of Festo works with companies and schools to educate future engineers and technicians. Festo Didactic, this training arm of Festo, displayed a set of solutions that provide education on fundamentals such as pneumatic and fluid actuation systems, basic electronics and electricity, and control system programming.

Festo Didactic training system.

These safe, and easy-to-use training systems also come with curriculum, making them a great fit for classrooms in educational institutions (high schools and colleges) but also in the industry for use in corporate training programs. These systems can dramatically decrease the time it takes to onboard new employees, saving costs in both the invested training time and the inevitable risk of mistakes made while training in real-world environments.

Trends in Packaging Automation

Festo’s display at PACK EXPO reflects the broad trend that has been climbing for years: end‑of‑line and palletizing automation are being expected to deliver higher speed and heavier payloads, but at the same time, end users are still a bit hesitant to incur the premium costs or complexity of large robotic arms.

By bridging that gap, Festo, along with partners like CODI manufacturing, is making industrial‑level palletizing more accessible to mid‑size operations, food & beverage lines, or anywhere changeover is demanded and budgets are limited. Festo has proved to remain true to the task, not only pushing performance, but also maintaining cost efficiency and flexibility.

Images used courtesy of the author.