The Junghans family business specializes in the production of packaging solutions for the food industry. And on a large scale: using the plastic injection molding process, a wide variety of closures, lids and containers are produced in the production hall with around 50 injection molding machines. These must meet the latest environmental standards and hygiene requirements and demand the highest levels of quality and efficiency. Previously, manual logistics solutions were used to transport finished parts, for example. A high number of personnel was required to ensure smooth operation, sometimes even in multi-shift operation. At the same time, the production capacity for injection molding machines was significantly reduced due to the required staging areas and routes for forklifts. The result: a lack of responsiveness to changes in customer requirements and batch tracking.
Tapping into optimization potential in the area of internal material flow design is extremely complex. With the aim of developing and integrating a new logistics concept, Junghans therefore commissioned its long-standing cooperation partners fpt robotics and SSI Schäfer. The vision: to network the injection molding machines, the automated guided vehicle systems and the palletizing application using the holistic „Subito Flow“ operating and control system and to automatically control all associated processes in the material flow.
The IT architecture of the production environment plays a central role here. „Subito Flow acts as a link between the material flow and fleet control system, the warehouse management and ERP system and the production control system.
It all depends on the interfaces: between man and machine and between the different process participants in hardware and software
The result is moving in the truest sense of the word: the in-house transportation of empty containers filled with injection-moulded parts or additionally required components is a thing of the past.
filled cartons is now handled without exception by a large fleet of almost 50 automated guided vehicles. The vast majority are used directly to network the injection molding machines and the upstream and downstream processes. In order to carry out the production processing tasks as efficiently as possible, the empty cartons are loaded fully automatically via transfer stations, which in turn are supported by special conveyor technology. The upstream process step of erecting the cartons is carried out either manually or supported by an automatic carton erector. As a result, different sizes of carton packs can be automatically erected, prepared and provided with an individualized code to the respective injection moulding machines for filling - based on the order and demand. The filled cartons can then be transferred to the dispensing station with the corresponding production data, closed, labeled and stored.
The space-saving, fast-response small parts warehouse from SSI Schaefer has a total of 45,000 carton storage locations for this purpose. In the further course of the process, the cartons are retrieved according to order and fed to the robot palletizing cell from fpt robotics. Here they are palletized fully automatically and then made available to the trucks for collection once they have been secured.
The result: a holistic concept that combines automation and digitalization
The production logistics, which are tailored to Junghans' needs, meet the increasing demands for quality and production efficiency. The overall concept is scalable at any time thanks to its modular design, enabling Junghans to continue to handle and control its production processes fully automatically in the future.
