Graincorp gains complete visibility of its Warehouse & Automated Guided Vehicle performance. All it took was processing data it already had...
Industry

Manufacturing: Food and Beverage

Outcome

Full visibility & ability to optimise

Capability

Warehousing & Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) performance and reporting system: data integration, web-based dashboard, building logic into database for intuitive user interface, warehousing reporting and visibility.

Region

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Josh Melvin,Warehouse Team Leader / Engineer

"We’ve been able to use the targeted information from Nukon’s system to really drive improvement projects."

Background

Company profile

With more than 100 years in the game, Australian-grown company Graincorp is a major producer and transporter of grains, malt and oils worldwide.

The company has the largest grain storage and transport network in Eastern-Australia and is one of the world’s top 5 malt producers, exporting goods to more than 30 countries worldwide. Graincorp Foods is Australia and New Zealand’s largest refiner of edible fats and oils with a combined capacity of 280,000 tonnes per annum across three
manufacturing sites.

Graincorp are proactively rolling out a number of digitisation and optimisation projects to its facilities, making it a leading technological innovator in the food and beverage and supply chain sectors.

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Challenge 

Graincorp Food’s manufacturing site in West Footscray, Victoria produces and distributes more than 170,000 metric tonnes of edible fats and oils to more than 200 customers per year.

Its warehousing facility is equipped with 10 Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and a warehousing team that shifts 500 tonnes of product per day. 

While the AGVs provide excellent value, the software did not have the level of visibility required to fully optimise operations.

There was no:

  • AGV performance analysis or historical performance trending tools 
  • ability to visualise AGV stock movement cycle times or AGV utilisation performance
  • warehouse visibility 
  • warehouse stock capacity, availability or historical capacity trending
  • chance to optimise production, warehousing and supply chain logistics with data.

Solution

Having done a number of other digitisation projects for Graincorp, Nukon was engaged to find a solution:

The warehousing and AGV performance and reporting system

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After collaborative consultation Nukon developed a series of dashboards to give managers and warehousing staff complete visibility of the AGVs and warehouse.

“We took the Warehousing and AGV System’s complex data and applied logic to get meaning out of it,” Nukon Senior Consultant Gareth Williams said.

“The raw data was there but it had little value until we contextualised it and presented it in a way that the staff could easily see what was going on in real time using user friendly dashboards,” he said.

The results? Graincorp now have seven user friendly dashboards and reporting tools for their AGVs and warehouse.

Technologies used:  Business intelligence platform: Dundas
Database: SQL.

Seven solutions in-depth 

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1. Inventory Report - for real time reporting/ awareness of entire warehouse

With inventory reporting there’s no need to crosscheck information across spreadsheets and physically walk to check stock. Search for inventory by SKU, batch number, storage location, or quantity of pallets for instant stock location and information.

2. Finished Goods - for faster, error-free stock movement

This quick reference storage guide colour-codes refrigerated stock based on its tempering time. Allows warehousing to quickly identify which stock can be removed from cold storage and loaded out.

3. Vehicle Orders - for real-time tracking and reporting of AGV orders

This tool allows managers to optimise AGV pickups, movement and timing. Visualise traffic in each warehousing ‘area’, turn-around time, drop off or pick up status, start/end dates and high traffic areas with pie charts, trend lines and real-time dashboard display.

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4. Vehicle Utilisation - for simple AGV performance and debugging

Managers can quickly see which AGVs are performing well and which aren’t, and optimise their usage depending on data. Allows for historical and real-time monitoring of AGVs at each stage of the stock movement process.

5. Storage Utilisation - for a clear picture of storage utilisation

This tool provides a graphical representation of how much free space the warehouse has. It also breaks down the data to the respective areas providing detailed data of the utilisation spread.

6. Storage Utilisation Trend - to better manage capacity and production fluctuation

Managers and planners can see historical use of storage racks, and make planning decisions based on the data. It allows data to be viewed in monthly, weekly and daily resolutions to assist in short to long-term utilisation planning.

7. Storage Availability Map – for instant visibility of warehouse availability

For managers and warehousing staff alike, this map shows which shelves are full and which are empty. The map colour codes full (red) and vacant racks (green) for warehouse staff, giving them instant insight on available racks without performing manual floor checks.

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Outcome

The Graincorp Foods Footscray facility now benefits from a fully visible warehousing and AGV system that is used by all levels of employees.

Managers are equipped with the right information at the right time to make the right decisions to optimise.

“This system has had high user adoption, even by some of the more traditional employees. This is likely the result of Nukon’s consultation process which was very thorough and people focused.” – Paul Quinn, Warehouse Leading Hand.

Some highlight business benefits include:

  • Increased productivity via reduction of manual checks
    by four hours daily
  • Managers now bring reports to KPI meetings because it
    gives them instant tangible data for reporting’
  • High user adoption = return on investment met quickly
  • Targeted information used to drive improvement
    projects

System benefits at-a-glance

  • Real-time reporting/awareness of entire warehouse
  • Faster, error free stock movement
  • Real-time and reporting of AGV orders
  • Simple AGV performance monitoring and debugging
  • A clear picture of storage utilisation
  • Better manage capacity and production fluctuation

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