Manufacturing & Packaging

Vietnam is rising strongly as a new regional manufacturing hub, with the production index for the plastics and rubber industry growing by 17.5% in the first 8 months of 2025. However, behind these impressive figures lies a paradox in many factories: While production lines are highly automated, the final stage—lifting and packaging—still relies heavily on manual labour.

This discrepancy creates a dangerous bottleneck: Productivity is stifled, risks of occupational accidents increase, and goods are prone to damage due to impact.

To thoroughly solve the "Increase Load – Decrease Human Effort" equation, the Industrial Manipulator solution featuring Zero Gravity technology was born. This is not merely a support device, but the key to helping businesses break through in productivity and ensure absolute safety in the new era of industrial production.

Current Status & Challenges in Lifting - Packaging Today

Although production capacity in Vietnam is accelerating, packaging and lifting operations in many factories are still run using outdated methods. This creates a bottleneck that not only affects shipment speed but also poses long-term risks for businesses.

Here are the 4 biggest challenges that factory managers are struggling to solve:

Red Alert on Occupational Safety & Health

This is the most pressing issue in traditional packaging lines. Workers continuously lifting, lowering, and rotating heavy loads (raw material sacks, chemical drums, film rolls...) at high frequency lead to cumulative injuries.

• Occupational Diseases: Joint and bone issues, chronic back pain, and herniated discs are the leading causes of skilled labour loss for businesses.
• Accident Risks: As human strength declines toward the end of a shift, the risk of slipping hands or dropping goods—causing injury to operators—is very high.

Damaged Goods & Export Barriers

In the context of Vietnam deeply integrating into trade agreements like EVFTA or CPTPP, product appearance standards are stricter than ever.

• High Defect Rate: Manual manipulation cannot ensure 100% precision. Just a slight impact when stacking cartons or tearing packaging when lifting sacks can cause a shipment to be rejected or claimed by partners.
• Hygiene & Safety: For food and pharmaceutical industries requiring HACCP/GMP standards, excessive direct human contact (hugging loads against the body) can cause cross-contamination and violate industrial hygiene standards.

The Problem of Productivity & Stability

Human strength is finite and variable, whereas machines are infinite and stable.

• Performance Fluctuation: A healthy worker might lift 5 tons in the first hour, but that figure decreases over time. Conversely, the upstream machinery runs at a constant speed, leading to local congestion at the end of the line.
• Personnel Dependency: Businesses are always in a passive position regarding sick leave, time off, or seasonal labour fluctuations.

Lack of Solutions for Specific Spaces

Many factories in Vietnam are designed to optimise space for production machines, resulting in very tight areas for packaging and palletising. Traditional lifting equipment (like forklifts, cranes, and chain hoists) is often bulky, inflexible, and unable to manoeuvre into narrow corners or handle products with complex shapes (such as horizontal sheet metal rolls that need to be stood up, or drums that need to be tilted for pouring).

Technical Solution: Industrial Manipulator

To solve complex lifting problems that traditional equipment (like hoists or cranes) cannot address regarding flexibility, the Industrial Manipulator is the optimal answer. This is a smart mechanical system operating entirely on compressed air (Pneumatic), likened to an "extended arm" that helps workers handle heavy objects precisely and effortlessly.

Operating Principle & Core "Zero Gravity" Technology

Unlike standard lifting devices that only have up-down functions, VIETMANI manipulators possess Zero Gravity load-balancing technology.

• Mechanism: The pneumatic system automatically senses and balances the weight of the load.
• Practical Effect: When this mode is activated, a 100kg or 500kg box becomes extremely light. The operator can move the object by hand in 3-dimensional space, stopping at any position without using force to hold it, ensuring millimetre-level precision during assembly or stacking.

Specialised Product Lines from VIETMANI

Based on the specifics of each factory, VIETMANI provides two core manipulator lines with superior specifications (According to the 2025 Manipulator Catalogue):

a. HA Series (Hard Arm) This is the "strongman" of the manipulator line, designed to withstand heavy loads and reach far.

• Max Load: From 80kg to 1,200kg.
• Working Radius: Max reach up to 4,000mm, 360-degree rotation.
• Application: Specialised for heavy-duty tasks such as lifting steel rolls, moving machinery, or loading/unloading large items (jumbo bags, drums).
• Advantage: A rigid frame structure ensures maximum stability when handling heavy loads.

b. BENA Series (Articulated Arm) Designed for flexibility with smart joints.

• Technical Features: The articulated arm design allows it to weave into difficult positions, narrow spaces, or inside machine frames.
• Special Features: Integrated brakes at joints and high torque resistance capability (50~1500 N.m).
• Application: Extremely effective when combined with tightening tools (DC Tools) in automobile, motorcycle, and electronics assembly lines, or for precise component handling.

Active Safety System

Safety is the #1 priority in VIETMANI's design. Every manipulator is equipped with a multi-layer safety system:

• Anti-Freefall: In the event of a sudden air supply cut, safety valves immediately lock the position, keeping the load suspended and absolutely preventing drops that could cause accidents.
• Operational Error Prevention: The controller is designed with logic to prevent unclamping unless the object has been placed down in a safe position.

Installation Customization

To adapt to every factory layout, VIETMANI solutions allow for flexible installation in 3 forms:

1. Fixed: Mounted directly to the factory floor.
2. Overhead: Ceiling-mounted to save floor space.
3. Mobile on Rails: Serving a wide working area.

Outstanding Benefits of Applying VIETMANI Industrial Manipulators

When weighing the options between maintaining manual labour, importing expensive machinery from Europe, or choosing a "Made in Vietnam" technology solution, VIETMANI manipulators offer 4 distinct competitive advantages:

Home Field Advantage: Investment Cost & Maintenance Speed

This is the biggest difference between VIETMANI and foreign competitors.

• Optimised CAPEX: As the only genuine manufacturer of industrial manipulators in Vietnam (ISO 9001:2015), VIETMANI helps businesses eliminate intermediary costs, machinery import taxes, and international shipping fees. Product pricing is much more competitive compared to equivalent lines from Japan or Germany.
• Speedy Warranty & Available Parts: Time is gold in production. If imported machines have issues, businesses may wait 4-8 weeks for parts, disrupting lines. With VIETMANI, the technical team can handle issues immediately, and the spare parts warehouse is always ready, ensuring the factory's Uptime is always at the maximum level.

The Economic Equation: Increased Productivity - Reduced Personnel

Investing in a manipulator is an investment with a quick Return on Investment (ROI).

• Reduce Headcount: With Zero Gravity technology, one female worker can do the work of two strong men. Businesses can reduce the number of people involved in loading/unloading to reallocate them to tasks that create higher value-added.
• Maintain 24/7 Efficiency: Machines do not get tired, do not need breaks between shifts, and the working speed in the 8th hour is as fast as the 1st. This helps factories easily plan production output accurately.

Protecting Product Integrity

In the packaging industry, especially for exports, a dent on a carton or a scratch on a film roll is considered a defect.

• VIETMANI manipulators help eliminate accidental impacts due to slipping hands or careless human handling.
• The clamping/suction mechanism is distinctly designed with soft padding, ensuring the product surface remains intact, meeting strict standards when shipping to bonded warehouses or exporting to the EU/US.

Flexible "Tailor-Made" Capabilities

Every factory has unique specifics regarding goods and space. Imported machine lines are usually Standard and very difficult to modify.

• VIETMANI possesses an R&D and design team right in Vietnam, ready to survey and design specialized End-effectors for difficult problems: From clamping drums, suctioning packaging bags, to expanding shafts for paper rolls...
• Ability to fine-tune the lever arm dimensions to fit tight factory layouts with many obstacles, where standard machinery cannot be installed.

Practical Applications in Packaging & Logistics

We understand that there is no universal solution for every problem, but with the ability to customise the clamping/suction parts (End-effectors), VIETMANI industrial manipulators can adapt to almost all stages in the packaging and manufacturing industry.

Here are the 4 most common applications being effectively deployed at our partner factories:

• Loading & Unloading Cartons & Packaging
• Lifting, Lowering & Rotating Material Rolls
• Handling Drums & Chemical Cans
• Assembling Machine Parts & Components

Conclusion

In today's fiercely competitive landscape, optimising packaging and lifting processes is no longer a question of "should we or shouldn't we," but a vital factor for businesses to break through.

VIETMANI Industrial Manipulators not only liberate labour and protect human health but also represent a commitment to perfect product quality when reaching customers. With the advantages of a domestic manufacturer: Understanding Needs – Optimal Price – Immediate Support, VIETMANI is confident in being a trusted partner accompanying the development of Vietnam's industry.

Don't let manual processes hold back your production capacity!

Contact VIETMANI now for a factory survey and free 3D solution consultation: Hotline: 0931 782 489