Mechanisation: an approach to achieve CSR objectives

Driven by the development of e-commerce, accelerated by the crisis, the installation of automated handling systems in warehouses has increased by 46% in 2020*. Faced with this technological evolution of logistics, zoom in on efficient projects in line with the notion of environmental responsibility through a webinar organised by France Supply Chain's LAB Digital & Technologies and its partner EOL.

From 70 million euros in 2011 to 350,000 today. In just a few years, automation has exploded in France, driven by the development of offers and the growing interest of sectors such as food processing, distribution and e-commerce. In order to help these sectors, EOL, a specialist in business real estate, and France Supply Chain published a white paper last year, aimed at all professionals looking for mechanised, robotised and automated logistics solutions.

Today, in the face of the health crisis, in addition to economic performance, companies are also seeing CSR benefits in automated systems. Human safety, well-being at work and environmental impact now play a key role in the development of this type of project:

"The market's responsibility is to maintain confidence and sustain growth so that it bears new fruit, beneficial to society as a whole: business efficiency, supply chain optimisation, better service to consumers and greater control of environmental impact", introduces Etienne Webre, Director of the Evolis development division.

A sustainable and responsible supply chain to remain competitive

And to illustrate this, Viastore, VPK and Auchan France presented a project that is unprecedented in France. "This is a futuristic system, the first in France in corrugated cardboard logistics", begins Philippe Tran, General Manager of VPK France, corrugated cardboard. Developed by the intralogistics specialist Viastore, the project, which was launched with an investment of 20 million euros, covers an extension of 6,000 m² adjacent to the VPK production plant in Saint-Quentin (02). The latter can accommodate up to 25,000 pallets via an automatic warehouse consisting of six stacker cranes.

"100% of the stock was subcontracted to seven external warehouses, occupying six full-time shuttles with four different suppliers and causing as many stock shortages in the warehouses. It was therefore a very complicated and polluting process, generating an additional cost of 300,000 euros linked to external storage, trolleys, lorries, etc. At the same time, we were facing problems of non-quality and identification of pallet locations. Finally, our customer service rate for orders shipped on the desired day was only 75%", explains Philippe Tran.

Reconciling quality, economy and environment

The system is now operational and can store 55 different pallet formats in an intelligent way, putting an end to external storage. It includes robots that match and mismatch customer pallets with system pallets and build up the trucks in an optimised way, in the order and configuration to be put on the truck. "At the same time, VPK wanted to install a rainwater recovery system for the production of corrugated cardboard, directly on the roof of the warehouse. This system makes it possible to reconcile quality of service, economic criteria and the environment", continues Jean-David Attal, Managing Director of Viastore Systems France.

As for VPK's customer, Auchan France, the installation also gives him complete satisfaction: " It allows us to be delivered within the time limit, to have the best possible product freshness thanks to the FIFO set up, to benefit from a safety stock at the cardboard manufacturer to face possible peaks, to optimise the rate of good delivery (98%) but also to reduce the number of trucks on the road and to rely on longer batches to fight against the overconsumption of energy", testifies Olivier Grignon, buyer within the Auchan Group, VPK's customer. A promising project, which, if the sanitary conditions allow it, could be the subject of a visit organised by France Supply Chain.