PAC Machinery, in collaboration with CMES Robotics USA and FANUC, said on June 11, 2026 it will demonstrate a fully integrated automated bagging cell built around AI-driven piece-picking at Automate 2026, June 22-25 at McCormick Place in Chicago. The live system, hosted inside FANUC America's booth (S-1001) at the front of the South Hall, links sustainable packaging materials with collaborative robotics in a single pick-to-pack workflow.
What is inside the cell
The integrated system pairs PAC Machinery's Rollbag R3200XL Fulfillment Paper Automatic Bagger - running Fiberflex curbside-recyclable paper mailers - with CMES Robotics USA's AI Vision System and a FANUC collaborative robotic arm. The bagger handles up to four times the speed of manual hand-packing and prints shipping and barcode information directly onto each package. The cell can swap between paper and poly materials without changing the underlying automation, a capability operators increasingly demand as sustainability reporting tightens.
AI vision unlocks SKU variability
CMES Robotics' vision system handles unstructured product flow, recognizing shape, orientation and size on the fly. Its software pairs with FANUC's collaborative arms, removing the need for custom tooling or extensive system reconfiguration when new SKUs hit the line. CMES has also been pushing into direct pick-to-pack integration with 3PLs and e-commerce operations, where exception handling has historically forced operators back to manual labor.
Where it sits in the Automate 2026 lineup
The PAC/CMES/FANUC demo is one of several Physical AI-driven systems lined up for Chicago. GENISOM AI is showcasing its embodied intelligence platform after a recent debut at ICRA 2026, and Teradyne Robotics is unveiling production-ready physical AI applications featuring Universal Robots and Mobile Industrial Robots hardware. PAC and CMES first introduced this cell together at PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2025, and the Automate booth represents a scale-up demo aimed at large fulfillment operators.
Sustainability as automation upgrade
PAC Machinery's "Flexible Sustainability" strategy turns sustainability goals into automation upgrades rather than productivity trade-offs. Fiberflex paper mailers, with a minimum of 50% recycled content (and rollstock options up to 100% recycled), drop directly into the same Rollbag baggers that historically ran poly. For operators chasing scope 3 reductions, that means fewer rip-and-replace projects and faster ROI.
Reporting based on coverage from GlobeNewswire and Robotics Tomorrow.