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Dematic supports Leche Pascual in developing its Logistics Distribution Platform
22.02.2010
Designing this logistics platform, an assignment undertaken jointly with the Projects Team at Grupo Leche Pascual, was an important challenge for Dematic.
Designing this logistics platform, an assignment undertaken jointly with the Projects Team at Grupo Leche Pascual, was an important challenge for Dematic. The project itself was highly complex, simultaneously bringing on stream three cutting-edge robotized warehouses, automated materials flow systems, and picking zones between the various systems that make up the facility. To effectively comply with the customer’s requirements, specific solutions were generated for each area.
In 2009, Grupo Leche Pascual celebrated its 40th anniversary. Ever since UHT milk packaged in cartons became available, the history of Grupo Leche Pascual has been one of an unrelenting commitment to innovation and quality. Today, the group has 12 production plants, almost 3000 employees and, in addition to its activities throughout Spain, has a presence in over 60 countries across the globe.
With its Aranda Operational Logistics Platform, Grupo Pascual proposed implementing the most innovative logistics and data management systems to physically link all storage and planning activities prior to order preparation and loading at the Aranda de Duero platform.
All the platform activities are performed within three warehouses, two picking circuits, a dynamic warehouse plus loading bays, internally connected by an automated transport system. This new concept replaces the former internal transport system that used forklift trucks. Given the complexity of the movements involved, overhead monorail circuits were selected as the ideal solution, complemented by 50/70 floor-level conveyor belts and elevators installed by Dematic. The reserve cycle capacity is sufficient to cater for the increased levels of activity that are expected for the coming years.
Three automated warehouses with capacity for 50.100 pallets
One of the key phases was setting up the automated warehouse for yoghurts and desserts, with the following dimensions: 104 m wide, 30 m deep and 28 m high. This facility is divided into two zones. The first is equipped with 4 transelevators and operates at room temperature. The second area also has 4 transelevators installed, but its temperature is set to 5ºC; here, desserts coming off the production lines are consolidated. This warehouse has a total holding capacity for 20.000 pallets.
Next came the new buffer warehouse, measuring 55 x 21 x 35 meters, with three double-depth transelevators, two of them operating at room temperature and the third at a lower refrigerated temperature; total capacity is 14.500 pallets.
The third facility is known as the UHT milk warehouse and measures 76 x 35 x 21 meters. It is equipped with a further 8 transelevators and its specified storage capacity is 15.600 pallets.
All in all, this amounts to a total storage capacity in the platform of 50.100 pallets in automated silos. That capacity is sufficient to satisfy the growth in storage demand expected over the next 10 years.
The buffer facility is located between the UHT warehouse and the yoghurts warehouse, absorbing any excess capacity from those two installations, as well as the products coming from other plants within the group.
All three facilities are linked by a mixed system of roller track conveyors, plus a total of 76 carriers moving along a monorail circuit. Management of the physical flows of pallets, storage and retrieval at the silos and movements between them, via the cart system, is controlled by a Dematic software solution.
Dual picking circuit
A dual picking circuit has been implemented for those operations related to order provisioning: the first one is automated (APS) and located on the upper level of the platform, while the second on the lower level is semi-automated. Both circuits feature a series of double fixed tables where complete pallets are set down and from which orders are picked. Supplying those tables is automated. The carts of the lower circuit and the overhead monorail carriers feed the tables with new pallets arriving from any one of the automated warehouse facilities.
In the automatic picking (APS) of the upper level, storage and retrieval of pallets, as well as the picking, are automated. This picking circuit is designed to prepare multi-layer orders (AMCAP Auto Mixed Case Palletizing), irrespective of the order scope or of the layer configuration. The objective of the automated picking is to absorb workload peaks and to avoid the human team provisioning orders by hand having to encounter difficulties caused by fluctuating demand.
Moreover, the lower level features a dynamic warehousing section with 15 lanes of double tables and a holding capacity of 2.100 pallets. Its purpose is to act as a buffer between provisioning and loading the picked pallets and half pallets. These pallets require intermediate handling in between their retrieval from the automated warehouses and being loaded onto trucks, either because of the provisioning process in the case of picked pallets, or because of the turnaround process in the case of half pallets.
21 flexible, high-capacity loading bays
The main loading and unloading area is located on the lower floor. It consists of 21 bays designed for loading and unloading trucks (articulated and non-articulated) and containers. Of the total number of bays, 13 can be used for manual loading and unloading using electric pallet trucks, while the remaining eight are dedicated to the ATLS (Atlas) automatic loading system.
Integrating IT systems: paperless
Integration of the IT systems was key in achieving accurate management and control of all the processes within the platform.
Dematic software controls the automated silos and material flows between the different locations of the platform and the CSPM (Comprehensive System for Process Management). This system is responsible for managing the production processes and for transmitting data on product releases via quality control to the platform’s IT systems.
Customer benefits achieved by this installation
- Concentration of all order picking tasks, previously spread across various facilities, into a single dispatch platform
- Optimization of useful warehouse space
- Inventory management in real time
- Simplified product loading and unloading, thereby minimizing logistics costs and reducing response times
- Control of stored products is made easier
- Enhanced quality of processes and customer services
- Improved overall working environment, eliminating potentials for human error in handling