Validation of an Automated Distribution Center in the Food and Beverage Industry

Warehouses are important components of most supply chains. In terms of cost, they rep resent approximately 20 per cent of total logistics costs and they are critical to meet customer service requirements. To increase efficiency, utilization of space and minimization of wastes, many companies are trying to automate their processes. E80 is an Italian owned company specialized in the development of automated and integrated intralogistics solutions for manu facturers of consumer goods operating in the beverage, food, tissue and other sectors, in 1992 the company anticipated the concept of Industry 4.0: the Smart Factory, sustainable, intercon nected and safe. The scope of the project is to validate the design of a warehouse automation solution applied to an E80 customer’s plant using E80 designed discrete event simulation soft ware package called SmartDesigner, supported by FlexSim. The warehouse analysed in this project is located in Atlanta and it is owned by PepsiCo, leader company in the food & bever age industry. This project focused on the first part of the implementation of the new system. An ”As Is” analysis was performed to understand the current state. This analysis gave a first evaluation of the entity of the flows within the warehouse. Once this preliminary analysis was done, a flow diagram was proposed. This was the input for the main part of the project: the simulation of the ”To Be” system. The main output of the simulation will be to evaluate the design of the newly automated system through the use of discrete event simulation anticipating and solving possible issues that might arise in the implementation phase