This unique hand design allows for support of product from the top as well as the side. This insures solid holding of the load as well as allowing for greater movement speeds during handling. Loads that were palletized by hand are fed into the machine and then examined by a vision system mounted in the robot hand giving the robot vision guided coordinates for pickup of the product. Placement patterns sometimes required product to be set on edge at 90 degrees. The hand design coupled with a 6-axis arm was able to accomplish this task.