The Swiss-based company Greiner Packaging manufactures plastic cups for food products. For years, the company has been one of the most productive within the Greiner Group. Recruitment was an even greater challenge for the company than personnel costs. The previous processes had reached their limits, especially in a hall with around 20 thermoforming and decorating machines for plastic cups and trays. Only one Holistic automation of production and intralogistics intralogistics would enable the next relevant productivity leap.
The site in Switzerland has always done very well by only taking small, effective partial steps. This has resulted in good partial solutions, such as the automated palletizing of a production line. However, there was no plan for holistic automation, taking into account economic efficiency and the sensible structure in sub-steps. Another very crucial problem was that the realization of a truly fully automated production cell always failed due to the issues of automated “vision control” and “packing & unpacking solution”.
In a comprehensive data analysis, we first examined the existing material flow with its performance data of the hall aisle and defined the quality criteria to be observed for a “vision control system”.
We then created a new hall layout including a new material flow and connection to the warehouse and adjacent production areas, which took into account the necessary technologies for complete automation. With our experience, we were able to determine the economic and technical feasibility within just 6 weeks and lead the customer to a perfect approach for holistic automation including “vision control” and “packing & unpacking”.
The key to success in the collaboration was as follows:
We initially realized a sub-project as part of the full automation of a 6-machine group and successfully implemented a pilot cell with an integrated “vision control function” and “packing & unpacking solution”. This model concept can easily be transferred to the other areas of the master plan for the hall aisle in the future.
After just 6 weeks, Greiner Packaging International GmbH had a clear plan for the development of an integrated automation system. The economic feasibility with an ROI time frame of 4 – 5 years was also clearly worked out. Based on the pilot project of the fully automated production cell, the solution to the central problem of “vision control” was demonstrated. The company can now implement the master plan in sensible steps in future and react flexibly to possible changes at any time.
We don’t start with the quick implementation of individual isolated solutions, we take a very close look at your business and the underlying processes to generate the full picture. From there, we develop in no time your holistic target picture. On this basis, it is then very easy to make the right decisions for all investment steps.
You are involved in the sprints right from the start and we focus on the right things that are necessary in the individual project phases. We accompany you from the first strategy workshop to the golive of your target planning.
In recent years, we have already successfully implemented many fully automated projects with similar requirements in your industry. We know what is important.