Pick magazine contacted two major clients from the past years to find out how Cimcorp intralogistics solutions have changed their operations.
Boosting productivity at Valio
A buffer storage area using the MultiPick robotic system was installed at the Finnish dairy product giant Valio’s Jyväskylä warehouse in 2009. What kind of benefits has the system produced in the last few years, maintenance manager Tero Ruusuvirta of the Valio Jyväskylä warehouse?
– The buffering storage has developed the whole system enormously. Passive waiting times of the packing lines have been decreased by 30 % since 2008, while at the same time, the number of different products being picked by the robots has increased by 20 percent.
Are there any specific features that have made your work easier?
Enabling the possibility of frame-specific picking, which allows delivery picking in the right order for loading, the system makes loading of delivery trucks more efficient. Also in the peak periods, such as holiday seasons, we can increase our picking and delivery capacity by picking some of the orders already in the buffering area. The frame-specific picking also makes the work of the operators easier, by reducing the need of walking around in the warehouse.
Has the system changed the way the storage works?
The system has enabled exact follow-up and control of the products – which would be at the least challenging without an efficient warehouse control system like Cimcorp WCS. Together with Cimcorp, the proficient staff of the Valio Jyväskylä warehouse has developed the system to be more and more efficient and user-friendly.
Solid performance at Itella
In 2010, Cimcorp delivered 21 new mail-sorting robots for Itella, the Finnish postal service, to meet the ever-growing challenges of modern day postal deliveries. How have the robots performed their jobs, service specialist Mikko Lanu from Algol, the subcontractor for robot maintenance at Itella?
– Cimcorp’s systems are used in four different Itella distribution centers – at Helsinki, Oulu, Tampere and Kuopio – as a sorting and buffering storage in mail acceptance, inward sorting and outward sorting of mail, and loading of transport units for distribution. Together with other technical changes made in the centers, the Cimcorp robots have radically modified the way things are done – more efficiently, that is. The Cimcorp robots are working brilliantly and perform the given tasks as expected.
What about the technical support from Cimcorp?
As Algol takes care of the maintenance and service of the systems at Itella, we also cooperate with Cimcorp’s technical support and HelpDesk when needed. The support has always been professional and we’ve been very pleased with the way Cimcorp has handled the situations.
