ROUND-THE-CLOCK MOZZARELLA
OPERATIONS WITH DRIVERLESS FORKLIFT TRUCK
 

With Global AGV, Arla Foods has achieved

• More pallets are loaded in less time
• Improved delivery time
• Improved work environment
• LEAN optimisation
• Close collaboration

For Arla Foods in Rødkærsbro, Global AGV has supplied an AGV solution based on a driverless forklift truck. The self-propelled forklift truck is on regular service in the warehouse, where it collects pallets with stacked cardboard boxes and safely transports them to a conveyor belt, which then sends the pallet to a stretch wrapper. The process takes only a few minutes and continues around the clock.

Added value in the value chain

For Arla Foods, it is essential to see the entire production cycle as a total value chain, where all stages of the process contribute to increasing the value of the final delivery to customers. The AGV solution in the warehouse is fully in line with Arla Foods’ desire to optimise the internal flow with production, control, internal logistics, warehouse, etc.:

“The AGV solution is a great example of added value in the total production flow. The self-propelled forklift truck pretty much takes care of itself and runs smoothly on the well-defined routes from A to B. It’s easy, simple and straightforward. Without much effort, we can change the driving route or other functions so that the AGV solution can be adapted if it needs to drive longer or to stack in new ways,” says team manager Allan Poulsen from Arla Foods in Rødkærsbro.

The AGV orients itself with mounted sensors that talk to other sensors along the driving route and the conveyor belts. The base machine is a standard truck that has been implemented with advanced hardware and software on the machine, so it can navigate a well-defined driving pattern at the Arla warehouse. The route is set by manually driving the forklift truck along the route and coding it based on selected positions along the way.

More perspectives

The AGV solution was put into operation in December 2016 and the machine has been running flawlessly ever since.

“We have had good experiences with the AGV solution. We can see that it works when moving products according to a fixed pattern. In this way, it does its job and also frees up resources from the internal logistics. I can see some perspectives in this, which could, for example, extend its operating range to a few more locations in the warehouse,” states team leader Allan Poulsen.

The driverless AGV truck optimises internal transport in production and thus performs an important task in this flow. At the same time, the employees who previously handled transport tasks can instead perform more value-adding tasks.