AllFasteners
View the details behind our VLM Case Study
Allfasteners is saving hours getting stock ready to ship with ELF Automation Vertical Lift Machines within its Melbourne warehouse.
Location:
Melbourne, Victoria
Industry:
Fasteners
Date:
January 2022
Project Background
Allfasteners is a fastener supplier to the construction industry throughout Australia and has been doing so for the past 20 years.
Meeting the demands of the industry and maintaining the service required to keep projects on track comes with a responsibility to ensure stock is on hand and despatched on time.
Having experienced substantial growth over the past few years, Allfasteners had once again reached their capacity within the current facility and needed to find a better and faster way of fulfilling orders.
Having called on ELF Automation to carry out an assessment of the facility, 2 major issues were identified:
- Limited bulk storage creating stock shortages
- Order picking times were too slow to keep up with growing demand
Project Details
Constraints
As part of the warehouse design, Allfasteners had a 3 tier mezzanine system for small item picks. Whilst the system worked to increase capacity in the past, it became clear that the distance needing to be travelled to fulfil orders was a major impact on lost time.
Having calculated the stock on hand within the mezzanine, ELF Automation identified that the 900m2 of pick face could be repositioned to fit into 2 x ELF Automation 4000 automated picking machines that could be placed right at the despatch area where they were needed most.
With a footprint of only 30m2, Allfasteners was able to free up a vast amount of warehouse floor space which solved the bulk storage issues as they were able to add 300 pallet positions.
Implementation
As a high tech piece of equipment and being Australian Made, the ELF Automation system was able to be linked to the existing WMS
During the 8 week manufacturing time, Allfasteners commenced the customised integration with the ELF Automation software so that once the machines were installed, they were able to go live immediately
Installation of the 2 x ELF Automation 4000 machines took 2-3 weeks and was planned to minimise disruption to current operations
Results
The result of improving output with the new technology has been outstanding for Allfasteners. Customers are being serviced in record time and the team remains focused for longer periods of time due to limited fatigue.
The 5 main results seen thus far are as follows:
- 20% more output without increasing staff levels
- Faster delivery of orders to clients
- Improved order accuracy due to the new automation
- 300 additional pallet spots gained for bulk storage
- Stock control of small picked items improved
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