Meat processing company uses ABB automated order picking system to speed up delivery times and extend product shelf life
22 July 2022
Belgium’s largest pork producer has installed ABB robots as part of a Just-in-Time order fulfilment system that delivers customised products to supermarkets more quickly.
With food producers and retailers both keen to maximise the choices on offer to customers whilst minimising wastage due to food going out of date, the ability to get products onto shelves as quickly as possible for as long as possible is becoming increasingly important.
A large continental supermarket chain wanted Belgian meat product supplier Westvlees NV to take on the logistics and distribution of products to stores and reduce delivery time. To achieve this, Westvlees needed to reduce lead time from customised order to delivery from 48 hours to same day delivery while labeling and sorting orders for individual stores.
Westvlees’ solution was to build an automated order fulfilment centre that has increased the shelf life of products by 20 percent and reduced the lead-time from order to delivery by 50 percent. Delivered to the supermarket chain’s stores, the prepacked pork products are individually labelled for each shop, cutting the time needed to get products onto the shelf.
Based in Western Belgium, Westvlees NV operates the largest pork processing plant in the country, producing 140,000 tonnes of pork products per year.
Previously, Westvlees would deliver products pallet-by-pallet to the supermarket chain’s warehouse where order picking was done for shipment to supermarkets. This process was time-consuming – taking up to a day to complete. This reduced the time the product was available on the shelf before it exceeded its maximum life span.
To improve efficiency and reduce the time needed to get products in front of customers, the supermarket chain asked Westvlees to develop an order picking system that would produce labelled meat packages for each supermarket.
Manuel Goderis, Product Manager at Westvlees says, “Our customers are demanding more flexibility and Just-in-Time delivery, which is why we worked with ABB to have the entire system automated.”
The products are loaded onto trays by seven IRB660 robots. These trays are placed by automated shuttles into an intermediate buffer using the white stock principle, in which generic stock is held temporarily until required to fulfil a customised order. The storage system has a capacity of 72,000 trays and can take in 16,000 trays an hour and take out 12,000 an hour.
If products are needed immediately for a supermarket, the system will automatically take out a crate and transport it to the unpacking station. Products that aren't needed go back into the system.
Customers can order until midday. On receipt of a customised order, a crate of trays is taken from the white stock buffer store and sent to the unloading station.
Three ABB FlexPickers unload products from the storage crates and place them on a conveyor to be sent to the labelling station. The selected products are then automatically labelled with a customised format for each supermarket, which often require different labels with different pricing. Following the labelling stage, the products go to the order picking stations, where four robot cells place them into reusable plastic crates. These are then manually palletised for delivery to the supermarket.
The system brings flexibility by disconnecting production from delivery – instead of a simple pallet of products, the customer receives pre-sorted, pre-labelled products ready to go to individual destinations. By pushing the order picking back to the supplier, delivery time is reduced by 50 percent, giving products an increased shelf life and making them available for longer to supermarket customers.
By separating the placing of products in trays from the labelling, Westvlees has also increased its machinery utilisation by 30 to 50 percent.
Prepared for the future with automation
The flexibility provided by the automated system enables Westvlees to respond quickly to customised orders, picking and labelling products and ensuring that they are delivered to the right destinations.
Goderis feels the robot-based packing system has prepared the company for the future, including processing orders placed via the internet: “The system has given us the ability to process complete orders in much less time. With this improved performance we are now ready for e-commerce.”
By ensuring that each product is correctly picked, labelled and dispatched, the system will also help Westvlees to deliver a high-quality service to its customers.
Concludes Goderis, “The robotic solution offers high quality, it’s impeccable – that’s what we want, to deliver high quality products at all times. Customers demand top quality labelling, and thanks to ABB we can offer that service to our clients.”
More on ABB Robotics here.
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