Auto elements firm wins large with automated packaging
Specialty distributor ECS Tuning has an extended historical past supporting the European automobile enterprise. Based as a service store in Norton, Ohio, in 1962, the corporate has grown right into a specialty distributor of aftermarket and efficiency elements for Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Mini, Porsche, and Volkswagen. ECS boasts a catalog of greater than one million elements, all of that are picked, packed, and shipped from its headquarters facility, now in Wadsworth, Ohio.
Accelerating development in recent times rapidly revealed an issue: ECS didn’t have sufficient capability in its handbook packing course of to persistently meet buyer wants or expectations.
Firm leaders determined they wanted a high-tech answer to the problem.
AUTOMATED PACKAGING TO THE RESCUE
ECS turned to Sparck Applied sciences and its CVP Impack automated packaging answer to assist each present wants and future calls for. With Sparck’s inline auto-boxing expertise, every distinctive single- or multi-item order is 3D-scanned to find out the minimal field dimension required. Corrugate is then customized minimize to eradicate pointless quantity and the necessity for filler supplies. Lastly, the order is auto-boxed in a fit-to-size parcel, taped, weighed, and labeled for delivery.
At the moment, ECS is getting orders out the door quicker with out an added burden on workers. The system creates a right-sized field each seven seconds, delivering increased throughput and permitting for higher use of labor assets. The CVP Impack can carry out the work of about 20 human packers in an eight-hour interval, in line with each corporations, permitting ECS to eradicate handbook packing chokepoints whereas releasing present employees for higher-value duties.
From the customer-facing aspect, the CVP Impack will auto-box as much as 70% of ECS’s catalog with little to no void filler or packing materials. Firm leaders say this goes a good distance towards enhancing the client expertise—by delivering orders in sustainable packaging that’s simple to recycle or reuse.
“With extra associates selecting orders and a machine that may deal with the quantity, we anticipate a considerable improve within the variety of orders moved out the door day by day,” Max Everhard, basic supervisor of particular operations at ECS Tuning, mentioned in an announcement describing the challenge. “That effectivity enchancment interprets to guarantees stored on delivery instances with in-stock orders which might be able to ship on the identical day.”
