Case Study: Altmühltaler
One of Germany's biggest beverage producers is using Navflex technology for autonomous trailer loading
About Altmühltaler
Altmühltaler is one of the largest beverage manufacturers in Germany and specialized in the production and bottling of mineral water and non-alcoholic soft drinks. The company has four production sites in Germany and loads 300 trucks with 6 million bottles daily.
Pursuing autonomous trailer loading
Although Altmühltaler has a highly modern and automatized production, loading trucks is still done manually. Apart from decreasing operative costs Altmühltaler wanted planable truck turnaround times and increasingly struggled to find qualified workers for the loading operations. However, costs to automate were high and typical AGV solutions were not deployable without serious infrastructure changes.
Navflex solution
Using the Navflex technology and powerful software, and Altmühtaler existing pallet jack was converted to an Autonomous Mobile Robot. After a short implementation period and without any changes to current infrastructure first pallets were loaded autonomously and warehouse management and personnel could experience their first touchpoints with autonomous technology. The use of Navflex technology led to operative costs savings, consistent, hassle-free operations on the loading dock and helped Altmühltaler to achieve end of line automation and readiness for age of autonomous trucks.
Since deployment:
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Zero product damage
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Zero safety incidents
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Zero truck driver loading intervention
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Throughput and trailer turnover maximised
"The great thing about working with Navflex was that they took an existing vehicle and 20 sqm of the docking area. In due time they demonstrated their ability to load autonomously, so we could see and test the solution before making any decisions"