What was the initial programming method for early robotic palletizers?

Manual teaching of coordinates for every pick-and-place point.

In the early stages of robotic palletizing implementation, the programming process was labor-intensive and required significant operator input for defining motion paths. Operators had to manually 'teach' the robot the precise spatial coordinates for every single point where it needed to pick up a case and where it needed to place it on the pallet. While this process was considerably faster than hardware modifications required by conventional machines, pattern changes still necessitated time-consuming reprogramming procedures compared to the modern template-driven software.