The MultiPick receives stacks of products from production – one SKU per stack. At the in-feed, the product identities of the stacks are registered to the MultiPick system. The robot picks the stacks and stores them on the floor storage area under the robot. The very high density storage system allows for the necessary buffer capability required to balance continuous production with specific delivery time windows.

The MultiPick OPS software receives customer orders for picking and plans the picking process to meet demand in order of priority. The robot travels from storage stack to storage stack picking the required number of crates in one pick sequence, making up a full mixed stack of different products. If a large volume of one product is needed it can also pick a complete stack in one lift.

MultiPick robots can also be used for automated picking of complete roll cages or dollies. The dollies are received, stored and picked within the MultiPick system in the same way as complete stacks of crates.

MultiplePick – taking order-picking one step further

A retailer may require less than a full crate of a product. Cimcorp’s latest development, the MultiplePick, can pick products from within crates or trays. Designed for gable-top products the MultiplePick can pick complete rows, also of different height, to make up customer-specific mixed crates.

Some dairy applications use trays, where two trays are packed side by side in a crate. Here the MultiplePick can pick two trays at a time out of a crate. It can place two or one trays at a time in a crate creating a mixed customer unit – the smallest deliverable being a single tray. The same trays can be placed on the retailer’s shelf – saving time and effort at the last, labor intensive stage of the supply chain – the shelf stacking.

At the output end of the system the stacks can be placed on a conveyor for transport to a loading bay or to be packed into roll cages, dollies or pallets. Depending on the size of operation, a single robot can pick complete customer orders. Alternatively several robots pick part of the order; each robot handles a number of SKUs and customer orders are consolidated after the picking. The whole process, including consolidation, is controlled by the Cimcorp WCS and OPS. Consolidation and dispatch planning can organize loads in reverse drop sequence for the delivery vehicles.

To read about Cimcorp solutions in the dairy industry visit our achive.

Manual singles picking in combination with automation

The above presents a pure MultiPick operation. But combined solutions are also possible and practical. If, for instance, you do manual singles picking, then the MultiPick can handle the replenishment of crates to the manual picking area. In this case the MultiPick OPS MFCS (Material Flow Control System) will control the consolidation of full crates and manually picked mixed crates.