When it came time to upgrade its 40-year-old Sydney facility, foodstuff manufacturer Cerebos didn’t hesitate to extend the challenge to materials handling solutions specialist CHEP.
The manufacturer, who has a number of well-known food brands under its belt such as Gravox, Saxa and Toby’s Estate recently invited CHEP to do an audit at the facility and from there decided to upgrade the existing stretch wrap machine which the company says wasn’t meeting existing requirements.
According to CHEP, its Lantech SLA4000 stretch wrapper is the highest speed wrapper on the market with a capacity of 120 pallets per hour.
The company plans to ultimately feed 17 lines into the one wrapper which CHEP says will be able to handle without skipping a beat.
Cerebos General Manager Joseph Dalo says upgrading the stretch wrapper is part of the company’s overall strategy.
“Pallets will come down the line and go straight through the wrapper. It has to be quick enough to make sure it could keep pulling the pallets through,” he says.
“We have a stretch wrapper now that can handle our capacity. As soon as the pallets are manufactured they’re wrapped, put away and the job is done.”
CHEP says the new arrangement will also mean fewer forklift movements on the factory floor, which in turn means a safer workplace.
In addition to being quick, CHEP says the Lantech SLA4000 is also smart, in that it can integrate with Cerebos’ existing warehouse management software and automatically generate labels and apply them to the exterior of the wrapped pallet load.
As a result, inventory accuracy will be increased while damages and “miss-picks” due to mislabelling will be reduced.
CHEP adds the wrapper is also more energy efficient than its predecessors which translates into savings on energy costs and fewer carbon emissions.
Dalo says the company chose to work with CHEP because of the value the company can add to the integrated solutions Cerebos decides to go with.
“Everyone can do price – it’s what you can do next, it’s about the value add. This stretch wrapper is a classic example of that,” he says.
“The service agreement means it’s fully maintained because it includes servicing and film. It helps us because we don’t have to worry about it – you do!”
More information on CHEP’s warehouse solutions can be found on CHEP’s website.