WMS Optimises Americold (Ex-Castlecool/AGRO Merchants) Chill Warehousing Operations

WMS Optimises Americold (Ex-Castlecool/AGRO Merchants) Chill Warehousing Operations

Grocontinental Whitchurch, subsequently Agro Merchants Whitchurch and acquired by Americold in 2020, is one of the UK’s leading global food industry logistics providers It works with many global brands, primarily serving the dairy, meat and bakery sectors. The company’s services include inbound and outbound UK and European transport and premium multi-temperature warehousing. It achieves the highest levels of quality, technical and regulatory requirements exceeding the expectations demanded of this fast-moving food industry.

The business operates from a purpose-built 35-acre site in Whitchurch, Shropshire with 165,000 pallet spaces of multi-temperature storage from -20°c to +12°c including ambient, chilled and frozen and blast freezing. Its warehouse accommodates chilled and frozen products and incorporates innovative refrigeration and mobile storage racking systems.

3PL Logistics – The Company

• Third Party Logistics 3PL Cold Storage
• Cold Storage, Frozen Storage, Cross-docking, Order Picking, Blast Freezing & Tempering
• Commodities handled: Meat, Seafood, Dairy, Consumer Packaged Goods, Bakery
• Halal approved

READ THE FULL CASE STUDY HERE

3PL Cold Storage Facilities – The Challenge

AGRO Merchants Group/Grocontinental (Americold) provides a one-stop-shop for all customer requirements across the food
product supply chain. In addition to temperature-controlled storage and distribution, it offers specialist services to
meet specific customer needs like blast freezing, nitrogen tunnel rapid freezing and tempering. All warehouses are HM
Customs bonded in support of global customer needs.

The company operates 24x7x365 handling 5,000 daily pallet movements with seasonal variations. It uses intelligent IT
systems to monitor stock locations and ensures that the temperature integrity along the movement chain meets all UK
and EU food safety standards. Its customers have real-time access to information about all aspects of their product stock,
in storage or in transit, via a secure web portal. This enables tracking of all orders throughout the supply chain and for them
to immediately view details of stock, dispatch, delivery and receipt.

Warehouse Management Software – ProWMS

The ProWMS Warehouse Management Software from Principal Logistics Technologies had been in use on the Castleblaney site since the business was founded in 1994 by Paul Shortt. It was later deployed to Lough Egish when this site was purchased by Mr. Shortt in 2006. Soon after these sites were acquired by AGRO Merchants Group in 2013 it was intended to replace ProWMS with the in-house global Agro Merchants Warehouse Management System. However, it soon became apparent that complexities, and how these were being managed by ProWMS, could not be matched.

 
Some key considerations were:

• ProWMS’s ability to manage in real-time, the many and varied value added services and to provide complete forwards and backwards traceability.
• Business rules management which are automatically implemented by ProWMS both at client and consignee level for example by not mixing sell by dates in a consignment even when there is no health or safety implication etc.
• Racking management the sites utilise a mix of drive-in, static racking, and mobile racking. Both in the put away of goods and the picking to customer order, ProWMS calculates the optimal order and routing of the fork lift trucks. Each truck is equipped with a portable computer and the operator is guided by on-screen picking instructions. Even when a number of forklifts are working in the same warehouse the most efficient coordination of their movements is worked out automatically by the system.
• Mobile racking to minimise the movement (open and closing of racks) ProWMS can, on a customer by customer level, where agreed with customers, break the traditional rotation of stock by best before date (BBD) sequence and let operatives pick from open racks as long as there is no similar stock coming with “X” of its BBD – in other words continue to pick from open racks.
• Dual cycling/forklift backhauling enabling operators on, for example, goods in to locate items at the put away location due for extraction, to minimise travel with the forks empty.
• Dynamic application of stock to pickers when they arrive at a pick face to provide batch and BBD date traceability through pick faces.

 
 
Results Summary

• All Value Added Services are Controlled & Tracked with ProWMS
• Interfaces Between ProWMS and Multiple Customer ERP Systems
• System Directed Picking & Put-away
• 100% Adherence to Client Specific Handling & Storage Rules
• Best Before Date & Batch Number Traceability Through Pick Faces
• Serial Item Tracking of Variable Weighted Items

“We are delighted that AGRO Merchants Group continues to be a Principal Logistics Technologies client and that we can continue to work together to deliver solutions to their customers. The recent acquisition of another one of our customers, Grocontinental , with 197,000 pallet spaces and 5,000 pallet movements per day, by AGRO Merchants Group will further enhance this relationship.”
Joe O’Shea. Principal Logistics Technologies