Estuario Carni relies on automation solution by KNAPP

Press information: Published on in Food

The family-run company Estuario Carni, with its headquaters in San Dona di Piave, invests in a new production location in Noventa di Piave to realize an automation solution by KNAPP. The OSR Shuttle and innovative depalletizing and palletizing systems form the heart of this solution. 

As a specialist in meat processing, refining and packaging, Estuario Carni supplies different regional supermarkets with meat products. In the future, the new distribution centre in Noventa di Piave will process orders from two production locations and prepare them for delivery – the meat is provided in heavy standardized picking units for further processing. The strenuous manual processes will be automated in the future to reduce the physical strain on employees.

In the new distribution centre, KNAPP realizes the system concept FAST Picking with special adaptations to meet the customer requirements. The picking of standard containers will be carried out fully-automatic in the future. After automatic destacking for delivered container stacks, the OSR Shuttle buffers the stacks. For delivery, the containers are retrieved and supplied to the high-performance stacking machines in optimal sequence. There will also be a work station for single item picking. The orders picked at this work station will be temporarily stored in the OSR Shuttle and then provided in sequence for dispatch together with the standard containers. The containers will be conveyed through the warehouse over KNAPP’s high-performance conveyor system Streamline. The system go-live is planned for the end of April 2016.

During realization, KNAPP will face several challenges as there is little available space. KNAPP will realize the solution on two levels to make optimal use of the conditions on site. The OSR Shuttle will be located on the upper level and connected to the warehouse processes at the lower level through a lift system. Additionally, due to the structural conditions, the maximum degree of coordination is required during the installation and the transport of all necessary components.

Key data
Performance: 11,700 containers per day
Maximal hourly performance: 1,700 containers (goods-in and goods-out)
OSR Shuttle:  1 rack line system (three-deep) with 9,072 storage locations
1 rack line system (two-deep) with 4,896 storage location
Temperature range: 0 to 4 °C