Challenges
In its 1.3M sq. ft. fulfillment center, Sodimac was processing approximately 4,000 pallets each day via 54 human-operated forklifts. Maintaining a continuous flow was crucial for meeting the ever-growing ecommerce demand without disruptions, yet the sheer volume of material movement cultivated an environment where:
- Forklift operations created a high risk of accidents, physical disability, and damage to inventory, infrastructure and pallets
- Safety risks and manual labor made hiring and retaining workers a significant challenge
- Human variability (driver skills, labor availability, etc.) made it impossible to maintain operational consistency and continuity
- Manual pallet picking caused missed Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Any new automation solutions needed to integrate seamlessly with the various systems already in use at the distribution center, including back-end software and automation solutions for picking and sorting
Solution
Sodimac replaced its manually operated forklifts with a fleet of 63 intralogistics Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) powered by the GreyMatter AI-driven fulfillment orchestration platform, facilitating:
- Autonomous bot navigation via 2-D LiDAR based SLAM technology that intelligently perceives surroundings and selects collision-free routes
- The orchestration of intralogistics processes (14 different flows) in real time, always safely in sync with humans, bots and objects in the enormous multi-floor warehouse
- Flexibility to immediately adapt to changes in demand
- Machine learning capabilities to constantly enhance AMR operational performance
- Integration with existing systems, picking and sorting automation, and multi-vendor technologies, enabling the design and customization of new, more streamlined operational and logistics processes
GreyOrange Impact
With GreyOrange warehouse orchestration and automation, pallet movement speed, overall productivity and safety all improved. The result: higher throughput, more efficient material movement and replenishment, and reduced labor needs, as well as:
- Zero incidents of operations-related worker injury over the past two years
- Consistent, continuous throughput, even during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Full visibility of inventory in motion, live maps, system alerts and the ability to monitor intralogistics throughout the entire facility
- Improved time-to-replenishment and dock-to-stock cycle times with intelligent, optimized cross-application assignment, forecasting and delivery synchronization
- Faster, more accurate and more reliable operations, positively impacting customer satisfaction and service levels
- Sodimac now plans to increase daily pallet processing from 4,000 to 6,000.
“The implementation of this project has allowed us to increase our service levels, get pallets to our preparation areas faster, and achieve productivity of 4000 pallets per day, which we expect to increase to 6000.”
– Gonzalo Elgueta, Automation Project Leader, Sodimac Chile
