OVERVIEW
Our customer, a well-known Ticino pharmaceutical company, decided to adopt an automatic storage system in order to move the product from the warehouse to the production department. The six-step redesign project included savings on personnel costs, errors and inventory, and better use of space, as well as the fiscal benefits of the Industry Plan 4.0.
TECHNICAL DETAIL
Automation is increasingly a strategic lever for improving efficiency and process control, even in non-industrial contexts.
To meet these traceability requirements and to reduce manual work, our customer has decided to install an innovative automated warehouse for the storage of materials.
The cabinet is entirely controlled via WiFi and integrated with the management information system. It also has an optical barcode reading device that allows the IT association between the calibration code of the individual package and the relative batch and expiry data given in the loading document.
The warehouse had to work in a clean room.
The warehouse had to work in a clean room.
The project of analysis, sizing and evaluation of the automated warehouse was divided into six phases:
- AS-IS process analysis: study of the activities carried out by the customer before the installation of the new warehouse, carried out according to the principles of business process orientation (Davenport, 1993).
- Collection and study of historical data: creation of a database of all incoming and outgoing movements and their respective stocks, in a time horizon representative enough to serve as a basis for the sizing process.
- Identification of the TO-BE scenarios: definition of a series of possible scenarios as the values of some drivers of the future state change: the evolution over time of the demand for different materials; their coverage index in stock and the way in which the warehouse is used during loading and picking of materials.
- Sensitivity analysis: calculation of the impact of the variations in each of the drivers considered on the size of the storage area and on the hourly daily occupation of the robotic system. The stress test has allowed to identify the ideal capacity and to verify the robustness of the system to the different scenarios assumed..
- Layout and flow redesign: find the optimal location for the automated system within the warehouse and production spaces.
- Economic evaluation: carried out on the basis of an estimate of the investments required for the installation of the automated system, the operating costs and the savings achieved through its adoption.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
- System Power Supply: 15Vac / 1A rated
- Level sensor: 1 proportional in barrel
- Temperature sensors: 1 proportional in cask
- Outputs ON/OFF: 16 type [EIOS] max 32Vac/2A
- Digital inputs: 8 of type [EIOS] max 32Vac/48Vdc
APPLICATIONS
- Industrial washing
- Metal washing
- Hospital washing
- Mining