Sector: Marble
Place: Verona - Italy
Santa Margherita chooses innovation for its just in time logistics, and innovation means Wipro Ferretto
A growing number of companies are looking for storage systems able to meet the market’s increasing need for just-in-time logistics solutions. This is the case of Santa Margherita: faced with its customers’ more customized demand, the company decided to upgrade its materials storage and handling system.
The solution designed and built by Wipro Ferretto combines flexibility in the automatic management of mono-code and multi-code orders, safety in handling quartz and marble agglomerate slabs and tiles, as well as optimization of space and workflow times.
Santa Margherita's storage needs
Santa Margherita is an established company based in the province of Verona that for over 50 years has been producing quartz and marble agglomerate surfaces adaptable to any design application. With a daily production of 7,000 square meters, it distributes its products in the form of slabs and tiles in 70 countries worldwide. Every day, Santa Margherita works with both large distributors who make scheduled orders for large quantities of just a few items, as well as with customers who place subdivided orders, made up of more than 10 types of items each.
Thus, warehouse logistics has a fundamental role in the company’s production flow, since it must be able to manage orders as quickly and automatically as possible in order to meet the customers’ needs.
A tailor-made solution for just-in-time demand
From the early stages of commissioning, the Wipro Ferretto assisted the customer by creating a storage system that efficiently integrates production and shipping, suitable both for handling and storing packs of mono-code slabs and for preparing multi-code orders. Picking is fully automated and load units are handled with maximum care, thus reducing the risk of damaging slabs.
A pick & place machine receives and reorganizes the slabs coming from the production area by combining the load units for better space management. The handling of single-code load units in the storage system is managed by a massive two-column automated storage and retrieval system. Orders consisting of multi-code load units are, in contrast, managed by means of a two-column vacuum lifter.
Customized logistics, optimized space and safety
This state-of-the-art Industry 4.0 system allows Santa Margherita to manage its warehouse space more efficiently while at the same time improving inventory control.
The automation of the entire system has speeded up the preparation of orders, optimizing the just-in-time logistics required by the market, and has ensured personnel safety, a critical requirement given the type of product handled.
