It’s time to start saving money in the Warehouse!
Increasing flexibility in the warehouse and cutting costs in storage handling is a challenge for most of the world’s beverage industries. New products with bottles or packages with differing stability and storage requirements are constantly introduced to the market in order to keep or improve market share. This often leads to changes in pallet types and the way goods are handled in the warehouse.
The production process has for most producers, been automated and streamlined over the years, but warehouse handling has lagged behind and in many cases is the same as it was 30-40 years ago; a fleet of manual fork lift trucks with tools installed on the trucks to help drivers make the right decisions.
However, speed and precision has now become a business imperative and storage managers are struggling to keep the cost of damages and maintenance to a minimum.
It is recognised within the industry that the biggest variable cost in the production process is storage handling. Many storage managers acknowledge that handling is a big percentage of the total product cost, but how can this area be addressed and cost efficiencies introduced?
It is no secret that automation is the solution to much of this, but how can this be done without investing in solutions and technologies that are costly to adapt to the changing business environment?
Historically, the alternative has been a crane based Automatic Storage & Retrieval System (AS/RS) which for many companies is a big investment e.g. new building and infrastructure. But, an AS/RS only provides a solution for storage and inventory control, the automation of transports still remains a problem with rigid conveying solutions. A few examples of transports include in-feed of dry goods, finished goods from the palletisers, empty bottles, cans and pre-forms replenishment, picking islands and shipping.
The use of a Laser Guided Vehicle (LGV) based storage system has become the answer to this puzzle.
The LGV-Storage & Retrieval System (LGV-SRS) from Elettric 80 combines a solution for storage, inventory management and transportation. The LGV unit picks up goods from the production lines and stores them in block stacks on the floor or in different racking solutions, often in the existing storage building. The system memorises the locations, the product ID and any other relevant data. When the products are to be shipped, the vehicle retrieves the correct pallet and prepares the load for transportation to the customer. The LGV-SRS can even interface directly with various automatic vehicle/container loading systems.
The system can also identify incoming goods (pallets, dry goods, etc.) and even detect anomalies and remove them from the process, saving costs by eliminating later re-works and improving line efficiency!
The LGV-SRS can also make all other processes in production more efficient. For example, bringing in/out material to the different production lines, pre-forms to the blowers, empty pallets to the palletisers and various consumable products to the lines. The overriding principles are safety and precision to ensure maximum efficiency during the material handling process.
The above details the technical side of the LGV-SRS, a larger benefit can often be found when a deeper analysis is conducted into nature of the system.
An LGV-SRS system can be installed into an existing building, with minimal disturbance to production. Often the installation is done while production is still running.
The lead time of projects is short, typically 10-12 months from initial order to obtaining a fully operating system.
The efficiency of the system is unparalleled – a number of vehicles work together but importantly remain independent of each other. Any failure or maintenance requirement of a single vehicle doesn’t noticeably affect the system capacity. This provides excellent flexibility and high availability.
An important factor to consider when deploying such a system is scalability - the way the system can expand to handle increased volumes or service new areas. The Elettric 80 analysis of a new system always includes a scalability study.
The safety and stress factor in the warehouse is minimised. The system has sophisticated safety systems which minimise damage to products and buildings, ensuring a far healthier warehouse balance sheet and no personnel injuries!Improvements in working environment are difficult to quantify, but anyone who has walked through an LGV-SRS system will remember the calm atmosphere and the feeling of safety.
The cost of the system and the transportation are virtually the same, however many hours or days a year a company runs. This opens up possibilities for housekeeping functions to run during low production periods (nights or weekends, for example), thus improving both the quality of the store and its utilisation.
A common misunderstanding has been that these LGV based systems are slow and need a bigger space to move in, and as a consequence more floor space is required than with a manual system. This is not the case with our solution which combines efficient vehicle administration with an extremely compact and sophisticated design. The space an LGV requires is usually no more than what a manual vehicle needs, but it will run with 100% safety in that space!
The storage quality is often improved. For example, block stacking can be made tighter allowing more pallets per square metre to fit into the store. The careful stacking makes it possible to stack higher than with the manual alternative. When racks are used, the sophisticated fork handling, which includes Laser “eyes” to see the pallet and its shape, guarantees higher stacking with an improved safety margin.
The inventory is continuously updated and always correct! The cost for inventory control and reworking due to wrong pallets being handled can be removed. This also leads to better shipping accuracy.
The spend on an LGV SRS system can be less than a third compared to an equivalent investment on an AS/RS system, depending on the solutions and requirements.
The flexible and automated fork set-up on the vehicles also allows for a larger number of pallet types to be handled both now and in the future, making the investment even more rational.
Elettric 80 has installed numerous systems worldwide with excellent results. The products and technology are constantly improving, so today we can offer solutions which take heavier loads higher and with more precision.
Our WMS system is an excellent complement to any existing WMS or ERP system, it takes control over the storage locations and gives the existing computer system more time and capacity to do what it was designed for, production!
Brett Thorne, Engineering Manager at Cadbury Schweppes, made the same analysis and conclusions as described in the above text and consequently acted on these findings and installed a LGV Storage & Retrieval System from Elettric 80 in his production and distribution site in Melbourne, Australia. Here are his thoughts:
“I want to emphasise the benefit I gained from the simulation process offered by Elettric 80. This enabled us to understand how we operate and has removed the project risks by determining the optimal solution prior to the implementation of the system.”
Brett adds.
“Other aspects and important factors when we made our decision was the precision of stacking which reduces product damage. The LGV-SRS system also gave us a solution to the warehouse access safety issues we had. This is very important especially as the warehouse holds high value products such as energy and alcoholic drinks, not to mention the increased safety and improved work environment caused by the LGVs e.g. no emissions from battery powered LGVs compared to dirty gas fired fork lift trucks, and last but by no means least, the minimal fixed infrastructure that needs to be in place, unlike an AS/RS.
(A part of this article has been published in The International Bottler & Packer)