Swisslog wins order with A.G. Barr

A.G.Barr, the UK's leading independent manufacturer of branded carbonated soft drinks has decided to centralise their Scottish distribution into one warehouse at Cumbernauld in mid Scotland. To enable Barr to do this, they have placed an order with Swisslog for a new high-bay warehouse and the roll-out of Swisslogs WarehouseManager WMS to two other distribution sites. Swisslog and Barr have been working in partnership since 1997, when Swisslog installed a MaxiPacker pallet store for raw materials at the Cumbernauld site.

Barr manufacture and supply soft drinks such as IRN-BRU, Tizer and Orangina. The decision to centralise distribution at the Cumbernauld site is part of an investment plan to centralise production, distribution and management on one single site. This will help to create greater efficiency and enable future growth. By opting for a fully automated high-bay solution, Barr are able to increase storage and to consolidate several existing sites.

Swisslog's scope of supply includes the planning, construction and project management as well as the delivery and implementation of the conveyor and storage systems, including four automatic stacker cranes, racking for 12,000 pallet locations, a shuttle car, material flow control using Swisslogs AutomationManager and Swisslog WarehouseManager will control the site. In order to provide common warehouse management systems WarehouseManager will also be installed at Barrs two manual warehouse sites in England. The system will be delivered with voice picking for pallets and cases and the functionality provides the potential to move to RFID in future.

Comments William Redman, Group Technical Manager, "Swisslog were chosen because they offered equipment and systems which were demonstrated to be reliable and efficient and could be supplied with integrated IT for control and warehouse management. The price and contract terms were competitive in the market place."

Swisslogs suite of standard software for automated and manual solutions will provide Barr with a single contact for implementation & support. Swisslogs strength in providing seamlessly integrated fully automated high-bay warehouses with low-bay manual operations has been proven at several successfull site implementations in the UK. This extensive know-how has made the choice of Swisslog as the provider of the warehousing solution for Barr easier.