CUSTOMER CASE STUDY—
Faster and more accurate goods-to-person picking achieved through automation
Tuko Logistics Cooperative is a grocery purchasing and logistics provider based in Southern Finland. Tuko procures a range of 25,000 fresh, dry food and non-food products. These are delivered to customers – 1,000 retail stores, 40 wholesalers and 5,000 industrial kitchens in the foodservice sector – on 24- and 48-hour service levels.
Tuko Logistics Cooperative’s own brands include the Eldorado range of foods, the First Price value foods range, the Banderos brand of Tex-Mex foods and the Smart Pets range of animal foods, as well as own-label coffee and household products.
The Challenge
Tuko Logistics Cooperative is a grocery purchasing and
logistics provider based in Southern Finland. Tuko procures a range of 25,000 fresh, dry food and non-food products. These are delivered to customers – 1,000 retail stores, 40 wholesalers and 5,000 industrial
kitchens in the foodservice sector – on 24- and 48-hour service levels.
Operating 24 hours on week days and with one shift on Saturdays, Tuko’s DC in Kerava ships some 480,000 cases – totaling about a million kilos –
daily. With the objective of increasing productivity and reducing costs, Tuko investigated various technologies to automate the storage and picking of slower-moving dry goods at Kerava.
From ten competitors, the company chose Cimcorp to deliver a robotic system to replace its voice-controlled picking operations.
The Solution
The Cimcorp solution is used to pick about 70 percent of orders for ambient SKUs. Based on gantry robot technology, the system handles 7,000 SKUs in over 50,000 plastic totes, as well as storing some 400 roll cages of picked product. Pallet loads of product are retrieved from reserve storage and decanted into totes at three stations, according to on-screen instructions.
A gantry robot deposits these totes in one of four cells in the buffer storage area. When a customer order is received, a robot retrieves the required tote and delivers it to one of the manual picking stations. Here, staff pick the required number of products according to on-screen information, placing them in a roll container. When the roll container is complete, a robot moves it to the storage area and then a conveyor system transports it to the dispatch area.
THE TOTE STORAGE AND PICKING automation is based on the Cimcorp 3D Shuttle solution. This features Cimcorp’s MultiPick® robot technology with the addition of an integrated shuttle that travels along the overhead gantry – while the robot continues with its next task – to transfer the selected tote to the outfeed conveyor, from where it is fed to the picking stations. The tote storage area accommodates 52,500 totes in stacks up to 11 totes in height. The area is served by eight robots, with real-time handling and monitoring of products, including batch and expiry date information to ensure complete traceability.
THREE ORDER PICKING STATIONS together provide capacity for up to 2,000 picks/hour into roll containers. Cimcorp also provided the automated roll container handling, with a storage area for up to 400 roll cages served by two gantry robots.
Thanks to the automation, we have been able to improve both the productivity and the quality of the picking work.
Development Manager
Tuko Logistics, Finland
The benefits and results of Cimcorp’s automation
HIGHER PICKING EFFICIENCY has been achieved, with bottlenecks eliminated from Tuko’s unloading and picking processes. The automation has sped up picking, with ve times more order lines picked per hour, reducing the need for labor.
ERGONOMIC DESIGN of the workstations ensures maximum decanting and picking productivity. During the transfer of products from pallets to totes, the height of the working surface can be adjusted to suit the worker. Similarly, during order picking, the roll containers can be lowered to the most comfortable working height as they are progressively loaded with goods.
IMPROVED PICK ACCURACY results from the automation, with the use of barcode readers and weighing machines also contribute to the prevention of mistakes throughout the process.
ENHANCED SPACE UTILIZATION has been achieved. With no racking or forklift aisles required and the system able to make use of the entire floor area up to a height of 2.5m, the automation results in more e cient use of space compared to traditional warehouses. In addition, the rival systems that Tuko considered would have required more space than the Cimcorp solution.
COMPREHENSIVE TESTING enabled installation without disruption of deliveries to customers. The first of the four robot cells was assembled and tested at Cimcorp’s factory prior to delivery to Kerava. Rigorous testing also allowed the productivity, safety and ergonomics of the picking stations to be optimized.
HIGH SYSTEM AVAILABILITY has been achieved through Tuko’s decision to award Cimcorp a full service agreement. Cimcorp provides a resident customer support team to undertake any necessary repairs as well as preventative maintenance routines and software updates.