Large-scale Automated Marshalling Solution

Home Bargains, a high-street discount retailer, has successfully implemented a large-scale automated marshalling solution from Lowpad at its Amesbury, UK distribution centre. This initiative addresses recruitment challenges and optimizes the final stage of its modern warehouse facility, creating a 24/7 operational marshalling solution managed by Lowpad’s fleet manager software.

Home Bargains’ Amesbury distribution centre faced significant recruitment challenges due to its remote location, requiring a large workforce for labour-intensive tasks. To alleviate the recruitment burden and reduce operational costs, Home Bargains implemented an automated marshalling process. The new system processes over 200,000 roll cages weekly using 91 Lowpad AMRs and 36 handover locations, 21 of which are fully automated.

Chris Tilly, General Manager of Home Bargains, praised the impact of Lowpad’s solution: “Lowpad has significantly reduced the number of workers needed, considerably decreasing staff numbers, helping us achieve our cost-saving goals and addressing our recruitment challenges.”

Lowpad effectively integrated new equipment with Home Bargains’ existing infrastructure, creating a fully integrated process. This streamlined, automated process now requires minimal manual intervention, from pallet intake into the warehouse to dispatch pick stock in roll cages, resulting in an effective, 24/7 operational system that significantly reduces the dependency on manual resources.

Jonathan van den Dool, Sales Director at Lowpad, highlighted the project’s success: “Lowpad’s automation solution not only streamlined Home Bargains’ operations but also addressed critical recruitment challenges. Implementing a fully integrated system in an existing and operational environment demonstrates our capability to provide effective brownfield automation solutions for retail distribution.”

Key features of the project:

– Processes over 200,000 roll cages weekly
– Utilizes 91 Lowpads, managed by Lowpad Supervisor software
– Includes 36 handover locations, 21 of which are fully automated

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EffiBOT Robot with Automatic Coupling

In 2020 Chantiers de l’Atlantique called on Effidence for the first time to assist with the transport of sanitary units for liners. The company, which specializes in the ship market, was looking for a high-capacity AMR to move these heavy loads from the production line to the assembly line in complete autonomy.

That’s why a robotic tugger EffiBOT-T was installed at their Saint-Nazaire, France site. This enabled the company to reduce the number of tedious and repetitive journeys made by one operator, and to relocate him to another job with higher added value.

Four years later, a new AMR was integrated into the shipbuilder’s premises. Satisfied with their first robot, Chantiers de l’Atlantique again called on Effidence for its expertise.

The objective: Reduce the distances covered by the operator (10km/day).
The process: The trailers are filled by the operators at the warehouse. Once this task has been completed, an EffiBOT is called in to retrieve the trailer using a tablet customized for the process.

The robot, equipped with an automatic Hook-A+ hitch, will hook and unhook the trailer without any manual intervention.

A positive collaboration based on trust between the two companies

This second project demonstrates Chantiers de l’Atlantique’s trust in Effidence, as well as the scalability of the robotics company’s solutions. The robots are both connected to the EffiFCS fleet manager, for mission management and activity supervision. This FCS is also connected to the call tablets to send mission orders to the robots. The development of this new Hook-A+ equipment has made it possible to meet the needs of Chantiers de l’Atlantique.

Effidence provides innovative robotic solutions to optimize intralogistics flows and order picking applications for key players in industry and logistics. Founded in 2009 by Cédric TESSIER, Effidence offers agile and powerful robotic solutions that adapt to the needs of its customers and their growth: collaborative ‘follow-me’ and autonomous robots to work with or near humans; standalone robots or cooperating fleet type ‘swarm-me’. In 2020, Effidence signed a strategic partnership with the Manitou group to distribute EffiBOT robots in Europe and market Manitou warehouse trucks (stackers, tuggers etc.) robotized using Effidence technology.

read more

Effidence Technologies and Manitou sign Strategic Partnership

 

EffiBOT Robot with Automatic Coupling

In 2020 Chantiers de l’Atlantique called on Effidence for the first time to assist with the transport of sanitary units for liners. The company, which specializes in the ship market, was looking for a high-capacity AMR to move these heavy loads from the production line to the assembly line in complete autonomy.

That’s why a robotic tugger EffiBOT-T was installed at their Saint-Nazaire, France site. This enabled the company to reduce the number of tedious and repetitive journeys made by one operator, and to relocate him to another job with higher added value.

Four years later, a new AMR was integrated into the shipbuilder’s premises. Satisfied with their first robot, Chantiers de l’Atlantique again called on Effidence for its expertise.

The objective: Reduce the distances covered by the operator (10km/day).
The process: The trailers are filled by the operators at the warehouse. Once this task has been completed, an EffiBOT is called in to retrieve the trailer using a tablet customized for the process.

The robot, equipped with an automatic Hook-A+ hitch, will hook and unhook the trailer without any manual intervention.

A positive collaboration based on trust between the two companies

This second project demonstrates Chantiers de l’Atlantique’s trust in Effidence, as well as the scalability of the robotics company’s solutions. The robots are both connected to the EffiFCS fleet manager, for mission management and activity supervision. This FCS is also connected to the call tablets to send mission orders to the robots. The development of this new Hook-A+ equipment has made it possible to meet the needs of Chantiers de l’Atlantique.

Effidence provides innovative robotic solutions to optimize intralogistics flows and order picking applications for key players in industry and logistics. Founded in 2009 by Cédric TESSIER, Effidence offers agile and powerful robotic solutions that adapt to the needs of its customers and their growth: collaborative ‘follow-me’ and autonomous robots to work with or near humans; standalone robots or cooperating fleet type ‘swarm-me’. In 2020, Effidence signed a strategic partnership with the Manitou group to distribute EffiBOT robots in Europe and market Manitou warehouse trucks (stackers, tuggers etc.) robotized using Effidence technology.

read more

Effidence Technologies and Manitou sign Strategic Partnership

 

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