Day: 30 March 2020

Geodis has been commissioned by the French Government to organize the emergency supply of millions of masks from China to France.

In order to respond to requests from the national authorities, Geodis is planning 16 flights over the coming weeks, representing in volume terms approximately 2400 m3 of capacity weekly. If necessary, this schedule could be extended into the month of May.

For this operation, mounted in a record time, Geodis has chartered two Antonov 124 aircraft which will operate in rotation between France and China. The Antonov is a plane specially designed for the transport of cargo in large quantities.

The French Minister of Solidarity and Health said on Sunday that this air bridge, was part of the expected delivery to France of 1 billion masks over the next 14 weeks.

The first flight from Shenzhen Airport in China containing 8.5 million masks arrived in France today (Monday, March 30) via Paris-Vatry airport. A second flight is scheduled later this week carrying 13 million more masks.

Geodis has more than 1,700 employees in China.

CKF Systems utilises ABB high speed robots to help customer perfectly pick and pack snack product.

CKF were commissioned to install a robotic picking system featuring ABB’s IRB360 FlexPicker robots and PickMaster vision software into one of the UK’s largest food manufacturers in 2019 helping them to perfectly pick a consumable product at one of their major factories. The system is helping them to produce, pack and distribute a steady supply of their product to the UK’s supermarkets.

The system replaces a previously installed robotic picking line which used older versions of ABB’s FlexPicker, the IRB340. Originally installed in 2008 the old line had begun to experience reliability issues caused by various hardware and software problems. After one software issue that cost the company a substantial sum due to lost production, the decision was made in late 2017 to replace the line with a new and upgraded alternative.

The project was awarded to CKF Systems due to their extensive expertise, they installed four picking cells using ABB IRB 360 FlexPicker robots with new controllers and ABB’s PickMaster 3 vision system. Together, this equipment ensures the product is carefully and accurately picked and arranged into stacks, ready for packing and dispatch to the nation’s supermarket shelves.

A tight deadline
With production going into tens of thousands per day, the client was keen to minimise the time needed to get the new system installed and operational. For this reason, CKF had just 15 days to install, test and commission the complete system prior to the picking process resuming.

This posed a tough challenge for CKF’s team. “Obviously, you always want to try to get as much time as possible for projects like these, especially where you’ve got a fragile product, which presents a high risk of breakage,” explains Elliott Grice, project engineer for CKF Systems. “Fortunately, we’ve got a lot of experience in developing robotic systems for food applications. This, plus the fact that we had planned everything in advance and devoted extra resources to the install, helped ensure that the system was able to be installed, tested and made operational in time for our client’s two-week deadline.”

Accurate high-speed performance
Since it started operating in 2019, the new system has delivered accurate, high-speed performance.
With two IRB 360 FlexPicker robots serving the left side of the conveyor and two handling the right, the product is sucked into vacuum pods on the end of each robot arm, which retain them until a stack of four has been achieved. The position of each product is detected by the PickMaster software, which accurately identifies their location on the conveyor belt.

When a stack of four has been collected, the robots deposit them on to separate conveyors that run to the packing line. From here they are combined into a stack of eight before being manually packed into plastic trays which are then sealed and sent for dispatch.

To help minimise the risk of breakage and consequent wastage during the picking process, CKF Systems carefully fine-tuned the timing of the suction tool to ensure cycle time was a short as possible of the FlexPicker’s vacuum pods. The PickMaster vision system is also programmed to reject any product that does not meet the correct size and shape specification, or which are overlapping and may not be cooked properly.

Continuous production
Running 24 hours Sunday to Friday, the FlexPicker robots handle up to 400 picks per minute, enabling the customer to produce a staggering throughput of 250,000 per day.

The client commented after the job had been installed that without using robots, it would be have been impossible to keep production going on this sort of scale. Using robots enabled them to get the best out of both their production line and their people.

German automotive logistics specialist Mosolf has named Inke Onnen-Lübben as manager of its Wilhelmshaven branch from April 1.

Onnen-Lübben will be responsible for the complete portfolio of products within the Mosolf Group at the business site. Her tasks will also include supporting the development of an automobile handling terminal for loading ships in the inner port at Wilhelmshaven as well as storing vehicles at available open-air spaces at the JadeWeserPort Freight Village. She will be closely supported in this work by Jens Burmester as Manager Operations.

Onnen-Lübben worked at the port marketing company, Seaports of Niedersachsen GmbH, for twelve years, initially in the marketing department, then as its manager. Before moving to MOSOLF, the graduate industrial engineer was responsible for business development operations at the web and software developer, böwa GmbH, in Bremen.

 

Prologis has released its latest research report on the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the logistics real estate sector, this time focusing on the US and China.

It said:

“In China, activity is picking up across our business and amongst our customers, and signs are emerging of an economic recovery as many return to work. In the U.S., Prologis’ proprietary Industrial Business IndicatorTM (IBI), which tracks customer activity in the U.S., indicates a slowdown, albeit not as deep as during the Global Financial Crisis.

As China begins to emerge from the outbreak, our research identifies four key metrics that could apply to both the U.S. and Europe in the coming months:

1. Continued operations. Throughout the outbreak in China, logistics operations continued except where strict government lockdowns were mandated. For those that remained open, Prologis customers took a raft of measures to ensure safety within the facilities and undertook remedial efforts where needed. Delays in logistics real estate construction were more widespread and restarting projects has taken longer.
2. A reacceleration for e-commerce. Activity was most resilient among Chinese customers focused on end-consumption and city distribution, especially for e-commerce customers. Overall, deliveries continued without major disruption even in the face of labor shortages. By contrast, automotive has been less active. As in the U.S. and Europe, multiple online segments performed well, led by grocery and general retailers.
3. Leases signed. Despite lockdowns and travel restrictions that limited sales showings of facilities during the worst point of the outbreak, activity continued (albeit at a slower pace). In February and March, Prologis signed more than a half-dozen new and renewal leases in China amounting to roughly 600,000 square feet.
4. Economic recovery. A sharp correction occurred in January and February. While early, an economic recovery is beginning to emerge in China as factories reopen and city life normalizes (although with prudent precautionary measures for safety). At the same time, the market remains vigilant on a second COVID-19 wave, and economic volatility still could depress logistics real estate demand in the near term.”

Read the report here.

Prologis has released its latest research report on the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the logistics real estate sector, this time focusing on the US and China.

It said:

“In China, activity is picking up across our business and amongst our customers, and signs are emerging of an economic recovery as many return to work. In the U.S., Prologis’ proprietary Industrial Business IndicatorTM (IBI), which tracks customer activity in the U.S., indicates a slowdown, albeit not as deep as during the Global Financial Crisis.

As China begins to emerge from the outbreak, our research identifies four key metrics that could apply to both the U.S. and Europe in the coming months:

1. Continued operations. Throughout the outbreak in China, logistics operations continued except where strict government lockdowns were mandated. For those that remained open, Prologis customers took a raft of measures to ensure safety within the facilities and undertook remedial efforts where needed. Delays in logistics real estate construction were more widespread and restarting projects has taken longer.
2. A reacceleration for e-commerce. Activity was most resilient among Chinese customers focused on end-consumption and city distribution, especially for e-commerce customers. Overall, deliveries continued without major disruption even in the face of labor shortages. By contrast, automotive has been less active. As in the U.S. and Europe, multiple online segments performed well, led by grocery and general retailers.
3. Leases signed. Despite lockdowns and travel restrictions that limited sales showings of facilities during the worst point of the outbreak, activity continued (albeit at a slower pace). In February and March, Prologis signed more than a half-dozen new and renewal leases in China amounting to roughly 600,000 square feet.
4. Economic recovery. A sharp correction occurred in January and February. While early, an economic recovery is beginning to emerge in China as factories reopen and city life normalizes (although with prudent precautionary measures for safety). At the same time, the market remains vigilant on a second COVID-19 wave, and economic volatility still could depress logistics real estate demand in the near term.”

Read the report here.