Project objective: Automate the loading, storage and commissioning of contact lenses in an e-Commerce Distribution Centre.

BEFORE AUTOMATION
The customer’s business model is B2C, with a large volume of separate orders, usually comprising less than 2 items. Manually this is a very labor intensive and error prone process. In addition, the scarcity of labor available was a major constraint and irritant, short labor retention involving much time lost on repeated training, and low motivation of the labor available leading to frequent errors. In particular, defective record keeping led to frequent stock outs and discrepancies, and hence to poor service levels.

AFTER AUTOMATION
Thanks to our automated solution, our customer was able immediately to reduce the FTE requirement by 8, and implement faster turnaround times by reducing the cut-off time before shipping. The error rate all but disappeared. This led to increased demand, which our system was able to accommodate. By 2022 the system was processing 25% more contact lenses.

INSTALLATION DESCRIPTION
Initial installation : 2016 – RAM, 4 rBOX, 4 aLoader
Add-on: 2018 – 4 rLite, second rBOX picking head
Storage capacity :  230,000 packs