Page 71 - FoodFocusThailand No.187 October 2021

STORAGE, HANDLING & LOGISTICS

Increasing Resilience in Asia Pacific

Meat & Poultry Operations

through Automation

Automated Meat Buffers and ancillary systems including Automated provide significantly increased storage capacity, requiring up to 60%
1
Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), Robotic Palletising and less space compared to conventional pallet storage systems. Reducing
Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) address these specific challenges the building dimensions lowers construction costs. Reducing the storage
facing meat and poultry operations, significantly reducing the labour cube volume required and minimising the primary sources of
requirements while increasing speed of order fulfillment and providing temperature loss including floors, ceilings and walls, reduces energy
improved operational and inventory management. costs by up to 40%.
Having a smaller footprint, ASRS also enable storage to be built
Meat Buffers : Optimizing product consolidation, next to production facilities, eliminating the need for refrigerated
1
storage & sortation to shipping transport between production and the warehouse. Saving space with
Meat and Poultry production operations across the Asia Pacific are being an ASRS and a buffer may also free up land for expanding production
optimized by implementing the buffers between the production lines and lines.
customer shipping. These all-in-one systems utilize multiple shuttles AGVs, by fully automating pallet transport, provide highly reliable
moving up and down aisles within a storage rack, with one shuttle per and safe automated pallet handling between palletising, automated
storage level, to store, retrieve and sort cartons and totes, in temperatures storage, despatch and other subsystems while maximising operational
down to -28 degrees Celsius. visibility and management and minimising labour requirements. With
Product coming off the production line, typically in random order, is multiple safety sensors, they can safely work concurrently with operators
consolidated in the buffer, stored, and sequenced out in the specific as well as other equipment such as forklift trucks. Unlike pallet conveyor
sequence required for customer orders to palletising. or monorails, the flexibility of AGVs means that as pickup and delivery
The fully automated solution minimises the number of workers destinations change and throughput requirements increase, pathways
required – typically reducing the labour required by over 75%, as well can be easily adjusted and additional AGVs added to the fleet.
as reducing forklift truck movements, providing for significantly safer and
more reliable operations.
The solution can be deployed to fit within virtually any space, utilizing
the available cube space more efficiently with higher storage density,
reducing the size of temperature-controlled zones and lowering
associated cooling costs. If required, active-freezing can be performed
in the system which eliminates the need for separate and expensive
case freezer mediums such as plate freezers prior to storage and
shipping.
The multiple shuttles within an aisle deliver very high throughput,
resulting in very fast order responsiveness and speed. One-hundred
percent stock control and inventory visibility reduces product loss and
provides improved product shelf life.
These systems ensure very high system reliability. If one unit fails,
the remainder of the shuttles continue to operate independently,
providing unrestricted access to stored products. In the unlikely event
there is a complete system failure as a result of a power outage, the ROI, Operational Reliability, Customer Service and
system design still enables quick manual access to every single storage Competitive Advantage
location. Automating meat and poultry end-of-production line product
These systems are modular and can be easily scaled up with the consolidation and order assembly with Meat Buffers and with
1
addition of extra aisles or by increasing the height or length of the system, automated palletising, storage and transport eliminates “touches” by
reducing initial investment and building/leasing costs and providing future operators, reducing labour and operating costs and greatly improving
flexibility. system flexibility, reliability and safety. Customer service levels
Productivity savings, minimum labour requirements, reduced errors are improved by ensuring optimal process flow, maximum
and lost products, lower building or leasing and operating costs, and inventory management and order accuracy and faster order
improved safety and reliability all contribute to a rapid ROI while delivering responsiveness.
improved customer service levels.
Ancillary sub-systems: ASRS, Palletising & AGVs
Depending on operational and supply chain requirements, other More Information Service Info C013
automated sub-systems can be integrated into a Meat Buffer system.
These include robotic palletising at the outfeed from the buffer to
automatically build pallets, ASRS for storing pallets, and AGVs for ข้้อมููลเพิ่่�มูเติ่มู / Additional Information
®
automated flexible transport of pallets between subsystems. 1 Dematic Multishuttle Meat Buffer and Pallet Automated Storage and Retrieval
ASRS optimize pallet storage capacity, reliability and throughput. By System (AS/RS) are automated solutions designed to increases overall
flexibility and system throughput in the meat processing industry
increasing storage density and enabling greater storage heights, ASRS
OCT 2021 FOOD FOCUS THAILAND 71

23/9/2564 BE 13:23
69-71_Stroage & Logist_Dematic.indd 71 23/9/2564 BE 13:23
69-71_Stroage & Logist_Dematic.indd 71