Case Study- Major Beef Processing Plant
Invar Systems provides advanced, innovative, flexible solutions for order fulfillment that:
- Reduce space, cost, and cycle time
- Increase productivity and customer satisfaction
- Improve accuracy and operations performance
- Adapt to changing business and market needs
Invar solutions utilize:
- Invar Systems expertise in Analysis, Design, Simulation, and Applications
- Best of breed and best fit equipment and subsystems
- Invar Warehouse System (IWS) warehouse management/warehouse control software product assuring system implemented follows system design
Introduction
Growth in the beef processing industry has been rapid in the past 25 years. Keeping up with customer orders and quality is a constant challenge for production plants. Hundreds of different cuts of beef (SKU’s) are produced, tracked and shipped to customers every day. Each carton must be tracked per USDA regulations. All of this requires a flexible and responsive fulfillment system managed by a robust and highly accurate software control system.
This case study illustrates such a solution provided for a beef processing plant. Invar Systems provided expertise in the system design and simulation for definition of the control system operation. The Invar Warehouse System (IWS) software package was key to the final success of the system.
Challenge
The production process operates at high volumes nearly 24 hours a day. It is dependent on the incoming live product and constantly generates a wide range of finished products. Product shelf life is limited. The product being handled has a limited shelf life and is heavy and inconsistent. The environment is cold and damp with the temperature controlled space extremely limited. Product traceability requirements are high. Customers order what they want when they want it and demand high service levels.
The fulfillment system must be:
- Flexible and match varying inbound flows with varying outbound flows.
- Responsive to changes in volume, mix, and method.
- Reliable and maintain high levels of uptime and minimal downtime.
- Space efficient and use vertical as well as horizontal building cube.
- Cost effective with appropriate and flexible automation.
- Informative to provide operations staff status of process, equipment, inventory.
Solution
- High Speed Sortation conveyor taking cartons from production to accumulation lanes for direct pallet build (fast movers) and box storage AS/RS (slow movers)
- Box storage AS/RS for a total storage capacity of more than 100,000 cartons
- Automated carton palletizers taking a pallet worth of product from an accumulation lane and producing a customer order pallet of mixed product
- Pallet Conveyor system to convey palletizer output pallets to the ship dock or AS/RS pallet storage
- Pallet AS/RS storage to buffer pallet shipments until needed at the ship dock
- Invar Warehouse System (IWS) supervisory software solution that oversees, monitors and orchestrates all cartons and produced pallets in support of the production and shipment requirements. IWS interface to the customer supplied WMS for needed production and order shipment information
Invar Provided Services
- System Analysis and Graphical Simulation.
- Functional Description of Operation defining product flow, specialized logic and expected resulting throughput rates.
- Invar Warehouse System (IWS) providing overall management and control and integration with host system, equipment and sortation controls, and operations.
- System Integrator for the electrical design/installation, conveyor and sortation control, and PLC equipment level controllers.
- Project Site Management for System Installation/Startup.
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