Automation and flow monitoring are essential to optimizing the supply chain. Companies, particularly manufacturers of high-volume consumer products and distribution centers, can benefit significantly from integrating processes and systems. Automating the movement of raw materials, finished products, warehousing and shipping boosts plant efficiency, safety and sustainability. E80 Group has been specializing in precisely these aspects of automation for over 40 years. Today the Italian company is recognized as a market leader in the design and installation of advanced, automated intralogistics solutions for the tissue industry among many others.
E80 Group designs increasingly advanced systems ranging from laser-guided automated handling and end-of-line to high-density automated warehouses and shipping.
The entire intralogistics flow is controlled by a single software platform, SM.I.LE80 (Smart Integrated Logistics), the “orchestra director” which guarantees the optimal management of operations, ensuring total traceability of the products handled and integration of the different systems. As of today, E80 Group has completed more than 300 smart factories and installed over 2000 robotic systems, more than 5000 laser guided vehicles (LGVs) and, since 2016, 35 automated high-density warehouses. Over the years, E80 Group has acquired vast expertise in the world of tissue, designing brownfield and greenfield sites and developing innovative hardware and software solutions. In recent years it has acquired important customers in Europe, Southeast Asia, Oceania, South Africa and in the USA. “The tissue sector has been an extremely important launch pad for us” – states the company’s President Enrico Grassi. Vice President Vittorio Cavirani adds: “We accompany our customers’ growth over time, allowing them not only to respond to but often to anticipate new challenges coming from the market”. E80 Group protects the customer’s investment over time thanks to its consulting and 24/7 remote and on-site assistance services.
Cutting-edge solutions
One of the most innovative solutions patented by E80 Group is the new LGV Unicorn: it specializes in the automated management and handling of parent reels and is designed to reduce waste and to safeguard the quality of the finished product. Unicorn can work with all kinds of reel; it lifts reels weighing up to 5 tons, with a diameter of 3 meters and stacks them vertically up to 3 levels, up to 9 meters high. The new handling system is equipped with two pins that act inside the reel core and which pick up and deposit reels both vertically and horizontally, thus eliminating the crushing associated with pressure-type grippers and guaranteeing the highest standards of parent reel quality. As there is no longer any contact with the outside of the paper reels, they can be moved and stored automatically without further interventions, and without any damage whatsoever. Such efficiency means an almost total reduction in waste due to product deterioration and a 6-7% optimization of warehouse space, since reels can be stored in direct contact with each other, thus maximizing safety in case of fire.
Format changes and integration for maximum quality
Unicorn is even able to handle spent reel cores automatically. This functionality comes on top of incredibly high levels of efficiency that ensure the utmost integration of the intralogistics operations inside the factories and the traceability of all the processes. Furthermore these LGVs cut energy consumption by 30% thanks to lithium batteries developed by E80 Group’s partner Flash Battery. Unicorn also increases in safety inside the plant: in fact, all E80 Group’s LGV models are equipped with technological devices that well exceed the international regulations. On this basis, the Group has recently developed and patented SmartDect, an anti-collision system that employs UWB technology to increase the ability of LGVs to detect operators and moving systems in the surrounding area, thus reducing and often eliminating any risk related to incorrect or unexpected behavior. Each LGV is equipped with antennas that communicate in real time with the identification tags placed on operators and manually guided vehicles, thus enabling the LGVs to slow down or stop when there is a potential danger of collision.
The system allows each AGV/LGV to pinpoint the tags, tracking position, speed and direction of travel and to share the information with all the LGVs; at the same time, the wearable tag also warns the operator of possible approaching danger.
