Strength in Unity: Universal Robots UR+ Ecosystem at PACK EXPO

Universal Robots has long been hailed as the leader and pioneer of the field of collaborative robotics. Today, as the industry moves closer to a blurred line of industrial vs. collaborative robots, leaning more into situational safety analysis, UR is still at the leading edge of robotics that are versatile, user-friendly, and capable.

UR’s booth at PACK EXPO 2025 highlighted some of the latest initiatives in easier integration, peripheral devices, and partner solutions geared toward the packaging industry. With more than 500 products in the UR+ ecosystem, the company’s exhibition provided a sample for every part of the industry.

The Newest Member of the UR Family

The highlight display of the UR booth was the introduction of the new UR8L, a long-reach arm with a payload optimized for pick-and-place and welding operations. The booth demo allowed visitors to handle the robot and feel the ease of manual navigation.

The new UR8L long robot.

In fact, you can check out a short interview between the author and UR's Head of Ecosystem Development over on LinkedIn, where I got to work with the robot hands-on at the show.

Palletizing

One of the core themes throughout UR’s booth is the focus on reducing teaching/commissioning time and simplifying the entire design process with plug‑and‑play solutions from the UR+ network.

One striking example was a box construction and handling boxEZ demonstration from Flex-Line Automation. A pair of UR robots picked a collapsed cardboard box and assembled it into a moving conveyor system.

Part Gripping and Feeding

In addition to the flagship demonstrations, UR also featured a demo that hovers around a simple, yet often challenging aspect of packaging operations: the flexibility to handle changeovers, the ability to pick, place, sort, seal, or palletize discrete components with various shapes and contours. The key to part handling is not simply bigger, faster robots. Instead, it’s a migration toward more capable gripping systems tied with sensing that can allow the robot to ‘see’ and ‘feel’ the objects with more clarity.

A small UR3 robot demonstrating part gripping and manipulation.

For the packaging industry these days, everything revolves around the ability to conform to changes quickly. From mixed-SKU processing and barcode scanning to efficient picking and palletizing of various parts, the equipment must be capable of reliably supporting these ever-changing demands.

The Solution for Every Problem

UR continues to expand its UR+ ecosystem to provide that critical flexibility for customers, with both hardware and software solutions from simple grippers to full solutions for palletizing, welding, vision, and end‑effectors. The wide range of product offerings gives UR a firm foothold into the application of any end user, whether that user needs a complete system for a turn-key solution, or whether an in-house design team is capable of creating the unique solution from scratch.

Universal Robots’ presence at PACK EXPO, as with nearly every show in the past, remained focused on solutions, not simply products alone. UR provides complete solutions: the robot arms plus the various peripherals and related products to handle real-world tasks for nearly every application in the packaging industry.