70 Years of Innocenti Depositi

"The idea for this day came very spontaneously. We wanted to celebrate with you the seventieth anniversary of our activity, and what better way to celebrate our past than to showcase a project for the future, which is taking its first steps these very days". He thus begins Davide Innocenti, technical director of Innocenti Depositi SpA, at the official unveiling of the new robotic picking system at the Lodi logistics platform, designed to meet the new demands of large-scale retailers for logistics, with increasingly parceled, multi-product, and closely spaced shipments, capable of serving both large areas and the proximity store. Among the incumbent customers of the operator specializing in linked warehouses are "because the railroad - Innocenti chimes in - is our passion", there is Unilever, which collaborated closely with the operator, sharing its expertise, to build a plant that is functional for a supply chain that needs to be increasingly streamlined. "The automated warehouse built here in Lodi - says Luisa Franzone, supply chain manager Italy at Unilever - was an example that we took to Europe and the world to show how logistics can be done differently, even and especially in Italy".

The renovated logistics hub consists of a large covered warehouse consisting of three main bodies: a traditional central warehouse and two automated warehouses on either side. In the central warehouse, order picking and shipping activities take place. In this warehouse, the New automatic line for picking activities while in the two automated warehouses product entry and storage activities are carried out. The pallets unloaded from the vehicles are stored in the automated warehouses and on request can be routed either to the 14 loading bays or to the supply lines of the new automated picking line.

The pallets are placed on the two entry lines to reach the first workstation where the operator removes any kind of impediment (film, cardboard flaps...) to the Depalletizing by the robot, activity that takes place immediately afterwards. At this stage, the robot destratifies the pallet, one to three layers at a time depending on the weight and size of the items, up to a maximum of three at a time to form the layers required by the different orders. In the event that the orders provide for a quantity less than the layer, the latter is divided into individual packages that find locations within the automated parcel warehouse, thanks to the system's real-time location assignment. Simultaneously with the destratification and singularization activities the system begins extracting ready-made layers from the pallet rack to form the final job pallet.

Also Bulk packages are picked up from the two stacker crane plant and taken directly to the operators for manual pallet assembly, giving priority to the heaviest packages that will form the first layer of the pallet. For pallet assembly, the operator is guided by the information shown on the display, essentially the picking quantities, paying attention to scanning each individual package picked. Once the order of loose packages is completed, the operator tells the system that the pallet can be sent to the exit line, suitably covered with transparent film to prevent accidental drops. The pallet formed by the loose packages remains stored in the warehouse area equipped with shelves until the customer order is completed, after which the order pallet, which can reach a maximum height of two meters, is advanced to theautomatic labeling machine for identification by barcode and brought to the outbound area waiting to be picked up by the transporter.

Finally, because there are packages in the warehouse that cannot be handled by the robotic stations due to size or weight, there is also A vertical warehouse containing 325 locations. In case the item requested by the customer is present in the silo, the system will search for the corresponding location and make it accessible to the operator, who will only have the task of picking up the quantity displayed on the screen, scanning the code and affixing it to the pallet in composition.

 

 

Below are the numbers related to the robotic plant made by Innocenti Depositi:
2 single item pallet input lines
2 robot layers
Cycle time: 160 cycles/hour per robot

1 pallet warehouse (layer) served by 3 stacker cranes
Cycle time: 44 combined cycles/hour per stacker crane
Capacity 10 layers for total pallet places (layers): 2,880

1 parcel warehouse served by 2 stacker cranes
Cycle time: 250 packages/hour per stacker crane
Capacity No. 6,800 channels equivalent to about 40,800 packages

2 bulk package preparation wells
Cycle time: 350 packages/hour per well

1 vertical drawer warehouse
Capacity 325 drawers equivalent to 325 layers of product

2 output lines.