D Décor banks on automation to save space

D’décor uses Automha solutions to optimise every available space and to improve the operations of storage and picking.

D’décor is one of the leading brands in digitally printed bedding and has the softest bed linen among the competition in India. The company opted for Automha Americas Automation Corp’s automatic solutions to streamline its warehouses processes.

Problem

Before Automha, storage was completely manual and on the ground resulting in a waste of time and space as well as many mistakes due to the dimensions and weight of the items – fabric rolls of up to 80 kg.

The objective was an overall rearranging of the warehouse through an automated logistic process – from registration of parcels, production, storage, picking to shipping, followed by an computerised system.

Solution

Automha has designed a large 4,000 square meter facility (1,115 meter long and 14.5 meter wide, with a height of 13 meters), able to collect a total of 18,400 cloth rolls of two different dimensions (1,5m long and weighing 40 kilograms; 3m long and weighting 80 kilograms).

The 5-depth warehouse has a cantilever rack designed and built specifically for the unique needs of our clients.

Two types of items arrive to the automatic warehouse for fabrics: the batches of finished fabric coming from the finishing & quality control areas and the semi-finished products, AKA “grey” because the fabric is not dyed or embroidered yet and comes from external suppliers or inner production frames.

We dedicated 15% of the storage space to these products, as well as an exclusive entrance bay, located close to the rear end of the plant.

Once the packages reach the warehouse, they are placed on a loading conveyor: here a series of operations are performed, such as the recognition of the length; the reading of the bar code, usually placed in the head of the roller, with a 360-reader; weight control and, finally, the transfer of the bath to the 5-depth storage area. There, the batch will be withdrawn by one of the two stacker cranes and placed in the position decided by the system.

By reading the code, the information system takes charge of the package and makes it available for sale. In the output phase, the missions start with the reception of orders from the system which, then, performs the automatic picking of the requested batches and sends them to the thee output bays, where the packages are picked by operators and transported to the shipping department.

The information flow is managed by the AWM Automatic Warehouse Manager software develop by Automha, a platform able to communicate with the host company, and designed to make optimum use of the plant performance and potential.

Advantages

The system designed by Automha has allowed to optimise every available space and to improve the operations of storage and picking. Important is the precision obtained with the Automha software, able to halve the error margin of the storage process.

Courtesy: Automha Americas Automation Corp