Product category:
Food and drink manufacturing: packaging and bottling equipment
News Release from: Siemens Automation and Drives | Subject: Simatic S7-414 PLC
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 18 September 2003
Warehouse automation improves efficiency
The automation of a warehouse in Rugby, UK, is helping a leading soft drinks manufacturer to deliver improved efficiency and performance.
The automation of a warehouse in Rugby is helping a leading soft drinks manufacturer to deliver improved efficiency and performance The site, used by Britvic Soft Drinks to despatch a wide variety of its products to customers, was recently upgraded in order to replace obsolescent equipment and increase reliability
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 9 Aug 2000 at 8.00am (UK)
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Wincanton plc, a leading supply chain solutions company who manage the warehouse, were employed to deliver a solution, having already had experience of using "Sortation Transfer Vehicles" (STVs) to undertake stock movements.
These STVs each carry up to two pallets and are electrically driven with power taken from a supply rail alongside the guidance track.
Automatic cranes look after every aspect of lifting, from the loading and unloading of STVs to the movement of stock within storage bays.
The Wincanton team engaged system integrators Savoye Logistics to carry out the upgrade.
To eliminate the problem of downtime, Savoye recommended that the solution was tested first on two of the automated STV's alongside the current system.
Controls were replaced in two cars and a new master controller was installed that ran in parallel with the existing master unit.
A Simatic S7-414 PLC from Siemens Automation and Drives was selected for both for installation on the warehouse cars and for the master station with PCs communicating by radio.
Savoye used the SCL package that is available within Simatic Manager, as the Master PLC could not be written in standard ladder logic that other PLC's offer, but needed a higher level language for the algorithms needed to control the STV's.
The two cars were tested rigorously for a period of seven months before Wincanton were satisfied that the new automated network was running successfully.
Wincanton, pleased with the solution, consequently decided to upgrade the entire facility and placed an order to replace the remaining 18 cars with the Siemens solution.
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