FEATURE Materials Handling
For the love of pets: Invar steps up!
Lockdowns triggered a huge surge in e-commerce orders at Pets at Home, which decided it’s time to upgrade the maintenance and support of its automated warehouse systems by calling in Invar Integration
P
ets at Home is the UK’s leading pet- care business,
with over 450 stores and a growing e-commerce channel. To keep pace with the increase of online sales, in 2019 the company decided to introduce an automated zone-picking operation at its Northampton distribution centre, where a powered conveyor and carton elevators transfer items over three fl oors of a mezzanine system.
Happy Pets-at-Home customers thanks to the predictive maintenance programme in its warehouses, underpinned by Invar’s expertise [Image: Unsplash]
Auto-carton erection and sealing machines work alongside pickers in a 24/7 operation to complete some 15,000 parcels a day, comprising orders from a 10,000 SKU product range, from pet food to accessories. In addition, a further 8-9,000 daily orders for prescription medications are processed within a dedicated order assembly area. Keeping such a highly-mechanised
fulfi lment process running smoothly, with minimal failures or glitches, is absolutely critical to maintaining optimal performance and, ultimately, ensuring customer satisfaction. Thus, reliable on- site engineering support is essential.
Support needed
When the pandemic hit, online demand surged due to lockdowns and travel restrictions, meaning there was a greater emphasis than ever to maintain performance. “It was really fortuitous that we had made the decision to invest in automation when we did,” said Simon Phillips, General Manager of Pets at Home. “That decision wasn’t driven by capacity issues at the time, but subsequently it has allowed us to meet the phenomenal surge in demand resulting from lockdown.” Pets at Home saw online order volumes
more than double within a year, helping it gain signifi cant double-digit growth. This led to the fi rm needed to increase
52 March 2022 | Automation
its engineering support to maintain performance. For that it turned to warehouse automation specialists, Invar Integration. Initially, Invar provided a team of four on-site engineers, which soon grew to fi ve, with a remit to manage a 24/7, 364-day-a-year service, off ering a planned preventative maintenance programme, immediate failure resolution, spare parts inventory management and further back-up support. A strict set of SLAs was put in place to track monthly performance: Overall availability of the system has a KPI target of 96%, scanner read rates 98%, recommended spares held vs recorded spares 98%, planned maintenance vs completed maintenance 97%, and engineering shifts completed and fulfi lled 99.8%.
“It’s an extremely busy warehouse,”
said Alex Moore, Maintenance Contract Manager at Invar Integration. “We have a full preventative maintenance schedule in place, spanning 52 weeks of the year, involving in-depth checks across the system, identifying and replacing components close to failure, such as drive motors, rollers or worn drive bands. And this extends right across the entire system, including the carton erectors and packing machines.”
“An important aspect of our work is
the provision of spares – we plan what parts to hold in stock and manage the
inventory, which is vital for ensuring maximum uptime of the system,” said Moore. Invar Integration’s IT systems are used to manage parts holding, directly linking into the planned preventative maintenance schedule. System performance is even more critical at peak times. “We have the retail Christmas peak,” said Phillips. “During this period, we see a good 30-50% uplift in volume, and I’m happy to say that the modelled and planned maintenance and support structure put in place by
Invar copes well.”
New-system shake-down Phillips points out: “The last 12 months has seen a really big shake-down of what we would describe as a new system, so there have been some challenges to overcome. However, we have been able to utilise Invar’s industry expertise and network to resolve these pretty quickly. For instance, we had a failure on a carousel that lifts cartons up from the ground fl oor to the mezzanine fl oors, but Invar had it back up and running within a matter of hours.” A full understanding of the many varied forms of warehouse automation is essential for any business off ering a comprehensive maintenance and support service. Being a well established systems integrator helps.
“Invar has been very supportive in bringing new ideas to the table,” said Phillips. “They have been great at listening to us, and in trying to understand our business. We have a fantastic working relationship with them and, importantly, they deliver what they said they will deliver – and that has stood them in very good stead.”
CONTACT:
Invar Group
www.invarsystems.com
automationmagazine.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66
