Edeka Südwest Fleisch
No process without IT
With its new production facility and logistics center in Rheinstetten, EDEKA Südwest Fleisch made a quantum leap in terms of productivity. The central nervous system of the smart meat factory is CSB FACTORY ERP. Combined with cutting-edge systems and machines, the software ensures daily production volumes of up to 650 tons of high-quality meat and sausage products for about 1,150 subsidiaries.
At their new site in Rheinstetten, EDEKA Südwest Fleisch GmbH built one of Germany’s most modern and innovative meat processing plants. The implemented information technology plays a central role. CSB FACTORY ERP controls the entire value chain: goods receiving, cutting, production planning and control, packing and weigh labeling, stock putaway and removal processes, picking, trolley loading and shipping. “The software supports us to control the entire value-adding process efficiently and transparently,” says the former managing director Jürgen Sinn.
Automatic quality tests
No process without IT: This was the strategic goal for planning the new factory. This is why the use of the CSB System starts with the automated examination and stock putaway of beef quarters and pig sides. Besides current quality tests performed during collection of the goods, the pig halves are graded with the CSB Image Meater, a fully automated, no-contact grading solution from the field of industrial image processing. Cameras capture the structures of the pig sides so they can be categorized according to different quality grades. Additionally, the system determines if it is the left or right half. This information will be relevant later on for the automatic first-stage cutting.
Consistent planning
The amount of pig sides and beef quarters required for cutting is determined by an all-encompassing software planning process. In order to achieve optimal planning results, all stages of the downstream production process are taken into consideration: The forecast of items sold on the respective day is calculated by means of the sales data. The resulting requirements for items to be produced are then incorporated in cutting planning. If the system identifies a shortage, corresponding procurement planning is triggered immediately.
IT makes life easier for the staff
Edeka Südwest Fleisch uses the CSB-System also to plan, control and optimize its production and packing lines, including fully automatic weighing and labeling. As the meat processing facility was planned with focus on systems that are easy to use by the employees, CSB-Racks with clearly arranged information cockpits were installed at all lines. At the racks, the software displays the current order including item number, price, minimum sell-by date and lot number. On the one hand, the software thus ensures transparent and efficient processes, while on the other hand, it helps to eliminate incorrect processing and possibly resulting customer complaints.
Picking of 100,000 crates
Picking has been designed for a performance of approx. 130,000 order line items with a total of 100,000 crates and boxes per day. Dynamic picking, which has been organized according to the “goods to man” principle, is performed at two special workstations that were installed in cooperation with Vanderlande. All employees can easily learn the workflow: Crates are ordered from the warehouse to the workstations via the CSB-System. At the workstation, the software indicates on the monitor the item quantity to be removed and the target crate for picking. In this way, picking is performed extremely fast and error-free: Every picker can handle up to 700 picks per hour.
Control stations to keep track
At two control stations, the CSB-System provides information on the current situation, the performance and the technical state of the production and logistics areas. A traffic light system gives a detailed overview of the processes in the warehouses, as well as in the depalletizing, picking and trolley loading units. In this way, some 800 single processes can be monitored online and controlled as required according to the situation.
