MACHINES & MACHINERY SETTING THE BENCHMARK
KONECRANES
Full accountability , traceability and 100 % stock accuracy with Agilon warehouse automation - Savings up to nearly £ 70,000 annually
Plastic Omnium Automotive Ltd . used to encounter issues with stock management , slow stock access as well as low stock accuracy and lack of space . Today , its MRO materials are continuously accessible , the location of each required item is easily identified , and no transaction goes unnoticed as each pick is recorded . The benefits brought by a Konecranes Agilon ® automated warehouse bring substantial savings of approximately £ 70,000 annually . The investment payback time was less than six months .
Plastic Omnium operates globally with 135 production plants in 25 countries and 25 R & D centres . Its diversified customer portfolio , industrial excellence and innovation strategy make it a major player in the automobile sector . The Edison Road facility supplies tailgates to Jaguar Land Rover .
“ We were looking for better control of our maintenance spares . The main driver was knowing if we had a spare or not for parts and related transactions . We needed to reduce the occurrence of spare parts not being available at the time of breakdowns . Space reduction was another consideration ,” says Duncan Lewis , Plant Engineer and the main user of Agilon at Plastic Omnium .
The company looked at several traditional alternatives to solve its stock management issues . “ We visited a site where we saw Agilon in action ”. Upon further investigation , the Agilon system seemed to suit best for storing smaller maintenance spares because of transaction accountability , the photo and weight options , and the accountability by secured logon .”
Plastic Omnium made a detailed ROI calculation to find the total savings potential . They added up the time taken up by the current manual process of searching for spares and the value of manual work that Agilon does automatically plus the future savings potential through an automatic replenishment process . “ We estimated that we could pay back the Agilon system in six months and save up to £ 69,600 per year . It is
Agilon has improved our response time to breakdowns as people know where to go to get a spare .
a massive saving for any business ,” Duncan points out .
Agilon has improved our response time to breakdowns as people know where to go to get a spare . Currently , there are some 2,600 parts stored in the system .
The 14-metre long and 6.1-metre high Agilon system at Plastic Omnium was installed only in three days whereas installing a traditional stock management system takes from six to eight weeks . Members of our staff have been very impressed seeing it in action and using it .
Deploying Agilon in the Plastic Omnium warehouse has brought significant benefits . “ Agilon has improved our response time to breakdowns as people know where to go to get a spare and if we have one or not and act accordingly if we don ’ t . It has also helped us pass financial and system audits . We have quick access to the parts through the portal , and control over P & L and stock levels . It improves budgeting , accountability and working with suppliers . We are all very impressed with it ,” Duncan Lewis concludes .
For further information , please visit https :// www . konecranes . com / en-uk / agilon
94 PECM Issue 61