Cimcorp Automation, Ltd. (Cimcorp), a manufacturer and integrator of turnkey robotic gantry-based order fulfillment and tire handling solutions, announces that the enhanced gripping technology used for Cimcorp’s layer picking solution has proven its ability to pick and place almost any product in distribution centers worldwide. With this near 100-percent picking capability, Cimcorp’s system can reliably and accurately automate virtually any layer picking process and provide increased efficiency and reduced labor costs, while ensuring complete traceability as products move throughout a facility. Executives will be on hand in booth 4237 at ProMat 2015 March 23-26, 2015, at Chicago’s McCormick Place – South, to discuss this revolutionary robot technology.
Cimcorp’s layer pick system (video) is made up of a heavy-duty clamping and vacuum-based tool and a large, fast gantry robot. These tools can be used together or independently with variable force and vacuum strength based on the SKU to be handled. For products that require mainly the clamping force, multiple layers can be picked at one time to increase efficiency and ease of product picking. The layer pick system is ideally suited for facilities that pick more than 1,000 layers per day from 50-500 SKUs.
Doug Pickard, president, North America, Cimcorp, said, “The success of a distribution center is reliant upon the speed at which it can get its products to its customers. Because many retail outlets look to stock more variety and fewer quantities of each product, it is vital for warehouses to quickly and accurately fulfill incoming orders and keep the store shelves stocked. Cimcorp’s layer pick system has the ability to pick a near limitless variety of products, access a large volume of inventory with a single machine, and create customer orders in any sequence desired. Some of our customers are also using this unique feature to directly load pallets into trailers, which eliminates the need for staging orders on the dock.”
Cimcorp began using the layer picking technology in the beverage industry and has since enhanced the tooling to handle anything from standard corrugate cases to shrink wrap products, bottles, tubs and open trays. Cimcorp’s layer pick solution stages every SKU that is picked in layer quantities within the work envelope of the gantry robot. Moving the replenishment load only once to a staging location and picking from that location eliminates any risk of moving unwrapped or unstable product to a stationary layer picking device.
The solution utilizes a built-in Warehouse Management System (WMS) that can collect order information from a customer host system, and use customer stacking rules and picking sequences to build customized order pallets. The Cimcorp WMS also maintains a database that tracks every move of each case, including lot information, and can report all activities and traceability back to the customer.
