DIXON – At UPM Raflatac’s Dixon pallet warehouse, a large, orange robotic arm takes labels made in the plant, then approaches a coil of labels that is about to be shipped out.

It adjusts as it senses where the coil is, then places the adhesive label on the coil. Its hand then moves along the length of the label to stick it to the coil, then returns to the machine dispensing the labels.

Raflatac is one of many plants in the Sauk Valley to use robots. But the plant employs about 73 production workers who have been trained in controlled programming.