ICA project design has devised a flexible automated SKU (stock keeping unit) order collating and palletising system which can be directly linked to production or utilised in distribution warehouses for order assembly and dispatch of retail products. Up until now, this task has predominantly been carried out manually.
The system is individually tailored for any company with limited, or hundreds, of SKUs and is applicable across the industry spectrum including third party warehousing, food manufacturing industry, retail distribution, pharmaceuticals, packaged meat and poultry supply – virtually any packaged goods requiring distribution.
The system integrates any combination of ICA technology including robots, gantries, layer picking, layer transfer and disassembly, cassette loading, sortation and palletising. Sub systems normally include case and pallet conveyor system, bar code and/or RFID scanning and ASRS warehouse in some instances.
Enormous benefits may be achieved where the order assembly system is directly linked to production. The product is only handled once, thereby eliminating the requirement of bulk palletising of products after production, and in some instances totally eliminates the need to store in warehouse and picking sequence thereby generally lowering SKU inventory.