With more than 100 years in the game, Australian-grown company Graincorp is a major producer and transporter of grains, malt and oils worldwide.
The company has the largest grain storage and transport network in Eastern-Australia and is one of the world’s top 5 malt producers, exporting goods to more than 30 countries worldwide. Graincorp Foods is Australia and New Zealand’s largest refiner of edible fats and oils with a combined capacity of 280,000 tonnes per annum across three
manufacturing sites.
Graincorp are proactively rolling out a number of digitisation and optimisation projects to its facilities, making it a leading technological innovator in the food and beverage and supply chain sectors.
Graincorp Food’s manufacturing site in West Footscray, Victoria produces and distributes more than 170,000 metric tonnes of edible fats and oils to more than 200 customers per year.
Its warehousing facility is equipped with 10 Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and a warehousing team that shifts 500 tonnes of product per day.
While the AGVs provide excellent value, the software did not have the level of visibility required to fully optimise operations.
There was no:
Having done a number of other digitisation projects for Graincorp, Nukon was engaged to find a solution:
After collaborative consultation Nukon developed a series of dashboards to give managers and warehousing staff complete visibility of the AGVs and warehouse.
“We took the Warehousing and AGV System’s complex data and applied logic to get meaning out of it,” Nukon Senior Consultant Gareth Williams said.
“The raw data was there but it had little value until we contextualised it and presented it in a way that the staff could easily see what was going on in real time using user friendly dashboards,” he said.
The results? Graincorp now have seven user friendly dashboards and reporting tools for their AGVs and warehouse.
Technologies used: Business intelligence platform: Dundas
Database: SQL.
1. Inventory Report - for real time reporting/ awareness of entire warehouse
With inventory reporting there’s no need to crosscheck information across spreadsheets and physically walk to check stock. Search for inventory by SKU, batch number, storage location, or quantity of pallets for instant stock location and information.
2. Finished Goods - for faster, error-free stock movement
This quick reference storage guide colour-codes refrigerated stock based on its tempering time. Allows warehousing to quickly identify which stock can be removed from cold storage and loaded out.
3. Vehicle Orders - for real-time tracking and reporting of AGV orders
This tool allows managers to optimise AGV pickups, movement and timing. Visualise traffic in each warehousing ‘area’, turn-around time, drop off or pick up status, start/end dates and high traffic areas with pie charts, trend lines and real-time dashboard display.
4. Vehicle Utilisation - for simple AGV performance and debugging
Managers can quickly see which AGVs are performing well and which aren’t, and optimise their usage depending on data. Allows for historical and real-time monitoring of AGVs at each stage of the stock movement process.
5. Storage Utilisation - for a clear picture of storage utilisation
This tool provides a graphical representation of how much free space the warehouse has. It also breaks down the data to the respective areas providing detailed data of the utilisation spread.
6. Storage Utilisation Trend - to better manage capacity and production fluctuation
Managers and planners can see historical use of storage racks, and make planning decisions based on the data. It allows data to be viewed in monthly, weekly and daily resolutions to assist in short to long-term utilisation planning.
7. Storage Availability Map – for instant visibility of warehouse availability
For managers and warehousing staff alike, this map shows which shelves are full and which are empty. The map colour codes full (red) and vacant racks (green) for warehouse staff, giving them instant insight on available racks without performing manual floor checks.
The Graincorp Foods Footscray facility now benefits from a fully visible warehousing and AGV system that is used by all levels of employees.
Managers are equipped with the right information at the right time to make the right decisions to optimise.
“This system has had high user adoption, even by some of the more traditional employees. This is likely the result of Nukon’s consultation process which was very thorough and people focused.” – Paul Quinn, Warehouse Leading Hand.
Some highlight business benefits include:
System benefits at-a-glance
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