Nałęczowianka – one of the most widely known mineral water manufacturers in Poland – offers almost thirty types of products. Every day, three production lines deliver approximately 1,500 pallets with different kinds of mineral water. Without an efficient warehouse management system, controlling such a large number of products would be extremely difficult. Additional needs resulted from the necessity to comply with the EU directive in force since January 2005, according to which all food and beverage products should be marked in a uniform manner in order to facilitate their identification and supply chain tracking.
The assumptions
The assumptions stated that the warehouse management system should, most of all, enable complete control over finished goods warehouse resources, at the same time increasing the effeciency of product tracking. Nałęczowianka chose WMS from Consafe Logistics Sp. z o.o. as a system enabling robust integration with the company’s legacy IFS Poland ERP system, especially by supporting online communication without using file interfaces. WMS compatibility with Quick Label logistics label printing software was an additional advantage.
Manufacturing, palletization, labelling
The manufacturing and palletization of mineral water at Nałęczowianka is divided into several stages. First, a bottle needs to be blown out of resin or a preform. Next, the bottle is filled with water, closed and labelled. The labelled bottles are then packed in packs, which are stacked on pallets. A partially filled pallet is conveyed to a labelling station where each pack is labelled. Next, the pallet returns to the palletizer, where next layers are stacked (with the new packs also labelled). After all the layers are stacked, the pallet is wrapped and transported on roller conveyors and automatic transfer trucks to the labelling machine. The labelling machine is located at the meeting point of the three production lines. “Quick Label is connected to an industrial automatics controller. The controller sends information about the type of product coming off the production line. The received information is placed on a logistics label, which is applied on both sides of the pallet. Approximately 3,000 logistics labels are printed daily”, says Szymon Paciorek, Software Department Manager in Consafe Logistics Polish subsidiary.
According to EU requirements, the logistics label should contain the following information:
- Name of the manufacturer / vendor
- Contents and bar-code of the pack
- Number of bottles in the pack
- Number of packs on the pallet
- Production date and time
- Minimum shelf life
- Batch number
- SSCC (Serial Shipping Container Code)
The logistics label chosen by Nałęczowianka is a durable, environmental damage resistant, self-adhesive label, which allows tearing off control slips at each stage of the distribution process. In the case of labelling machine failure, Quick Label enables manual printing of the logistics label on a desktop Zebra printer.
Acceptance of manufactured products
The labelled pallet is transported on a roller conveyor to the finished goods warehouse, where a truck operator verifies, whether the pallet has been packed correctly and whether everything is in order, scans the SSCC code from the label, thus registering the pallet in the WMS. The SSCC code read from the logistics label enables:
- Identification of the goods on the pallet
- Acceptance of the pallet in the warehouse
- Pallet identification and quality control status change
- Picking the pallet for a shipping order
“To save time, pallets are accepted into the IFS warehouse periodically (not more than once during each shift) via a web interface. The warehouseman logs into WMS and launches the process for posting the entire ‘package’ of pallets in the books. The pallets are then automatically accepted into the main warehouse with details on the level of item and batch for total quantities,” explains Stefan Starzyński, senior IT officer in Nałęczowianka, responsible for system deployment.
Each product has to undergo laboratory control and receive a quality certificate. Goods that have not passed quality control cannot be sent to the customer.
Distribution
Distribution is handled by an external company, Nestle Waters, which delivers loading orders. After a loading order is registered and activated in the IFS system, the radio terminal of the truck operator displays a request to deliver the goods to the indicated loading platform. The truck operator scans the SSCC code and the software checks, if this is the correct product, and whether the pallet has passed quality control. Next, the truck operator delivers the pallet to the indicated loading platform. Pallet delivery is confirmed by reading the platform code. The movement of each pallet is registered in the database. This information allows tracking the manufacturing date and time of each pallet, as well as when and to which customer it was delivered. This cycle is repeated until the truck operator finishes the loading procedure. After the order is completed, the warehouseman continues to process it in IFS.
Deployment issues
The main issue, which arose during the deployment of the WMS and Quick Label, was the need to eliminate signaling errors in the pallet conveying system. Signaling inaccuracies of PLC controllers generated errors in label printing during full traffic on the three lines, but eventually, the supplier of the conveyor belt controllers managed to solve the problem.
Training employees to work with the new device also took some time. The truck operators had to change their approach to the job – working online with a terminal required more responsibility in performing their duties, since each error during the acceptance or picking of goods is signaled immediately.
Benefits from deploying
“Deploying Quick Label together with the WMS allowed us to keep a detailed online record during the acceptance of goods from production. It also helped us to increase the effectiveness of product tracking, especially by providing information about when and where the goods were transported, exact to the SSCC number”, says Stefan Starzyński, Nałęczowianka.
Additionally, production can have an ongoing view of the quantities manufactured during a given shift. The Logistics Department in ESI Polska, which is responsible for distribution and organizes transport, has constant access to inventory levels, complete with information about which batch is awaiting a quality certificate from the laboratory, and which one is cleared and ready for shipment. “Full control over each batch and its quality status has greatly simplified the sales process”, adds Stefan Starzyński.
Read more at www.naleczowianka.pl
2005