A winning solution
May 1st 2010 Swisslog revamps warehousing facilities for Coca-Cola Amatil incorporating storage
and staging systems and a transportation hub including monorail
Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA), located in Northmead, was
outgrowing its on-site warehousing facilities, with stock
stored in multiple off-site locations which created
numerous problems such as high levels of stock write-offs, site
congestion and other health and safety risks.
Swisslog worked in collaboration with CCA to assess the
feasibility of different distribution options applicable to its New
South Wales (NSW) operations, before designing the materials
handling solution.
The new facility needed to address chain of responsibility
requirements for transport and ensure accurate and timely
replenishment to its other operations. The solution also needed to
enable CCA to achieve world best practice levels of customer
service, operational costs and stock accuracy. It needed to provide
a safe working environment and facilitate a growth platform while
also meeting FIFO, quality and delivery requirements.
Key design elements
Storage systems: Given CCA's high pallet storage requirement
and its limited availability of on-site space, Swisslog's solution
maximised vertical height using a crane-fed automated storage
and retrieval system (ASRS). This allowed a 32m tall High Bay
which can store the equivalent of 158 million cans. The racking
design was optimised to minimise both building and material
handling costs. A clad rack design was chosen to achieve these
benefits whereby the racking itself forms part of the construction
of the building. Clad rack also enabled a quicker implementation
schedule versus a more traditional design where a free standing
rack is built inside a conventional building.
Transportation hub: A monorail linking the receiving, storage
and staging operations allows pallets to be quickly and easily
transported from any source to any destination within the system.
During the design phases the transportation and handling
strategies were optimised to enable the monorail to transport 740
pallets every hour. A pallet is delivered to a destination by the
monorail every 5 seconds.
Staging systems: Due to CCA's high system throughputs, it was
essential to ensure the system provided adequate staging to enable
a continual flow of pallets to the docks. The staging areas provide
operational flexibility during peak and non peak periods and were
designed to enable the loading of a trailer while the system
automatically stages the next load.
In order to achieve the targeted truck turn around times,
automated loading was considered vital given the technology's fast
response times. Between the 6 docks over 15 trailers can be loaded
every hour, which is one 22 pallet trailer every 4 minutes.
Key benefits
In addition to effectively enabling significant growth, Swisslog's
solution provided CCA with the ability to consolidate its NSW
warehousing operations, improve its efficiency and incorporate its
environmental initiatives. Also, despite its 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week operation, the High Bay requires very few staff. There are
just 26 people employed directly in the High Bay by CCA.
Most importantly CCA's customers have benefited from the
completion of the Northmead High Bay in a number of ways
including very high inventory accuracy and on time delivery.
The state-of-the-art warehouse is now the largest of its kind in
the southern hemisphere and has one of the highest throughput
handling systems in the world. The Northmead warehouse was
recognised by the Logistics Association of Australia in 2009 when
it was awarded with a Smart Award for Excellence in Supply
Chain Innovation. It also scooped a prestigious Mercury award in
2009 for its Technology Application.
CCA distribution centre manager Linda Leo concluded: "The
utilisation of our system and equipment serves for us to be
efficient, effective and
economical with our operation." More articles from Swisslog (UK) Ltd.: | 
