From World Cup Promotions to New Packaging Compliance and Supply Chain Upheaval – the Role of Automation in Operational Agility

• Wouter Satijn, Chief Revenue Officer, Joloda Hydraroll

Zero touch production lines and super slick warehouse operations enable manufacturers to quickly ramp up for major sporting event promotions and other timely opportunities to tap into massive global demand. Yet behind the scenes, the continued reliance on manual loading and unloading processes creates a huge operational overhead, demanding third party co-packing partners and significant additional resources. As Wouter Satijn, Chief Revenue Officer, Joloda Hydraroll, explains, long overdue automation within unloading and loading processes is now imperative to deliver the end-to-end agility required to maximise short lived promotional opportunities – all while responding to new compliance demands and adding vital supply chain resilience in the process.

Introduction

The digital transformation that has occurred throughout manufacturing over the past decade has radically expanded the opportunities for marketing innovation and customer engagement. Short run promotions – such as those linked to sporting events like the World Cup – can be more easily achieved with super-efficient, often zero touch production lines. At the same time, warehouse transformation driven by the additional distribution complexity created by short run lines, as well as e-commerce, has led to extraordinary new efficiencies. AGVs, conveyors and the use of real-time data feeds enable essential agility throughout the logistics process.

Between these two highly efficient centres of excellence, continued reliance on manual loading and unloading remains a concerning business constraint. The management of short run promotions, for example, requires dedicated and expensive co-packing partners. It demands additional staff, including scarce forklift drivers. Yet product marketing teams are desperate to exploit the power of event-linked customer engagement, especially for global events, with their huge media reach. The operational conflict is inevitable.

End-to-End Agility

Event-led marketing is just one expression of a far broader requirement for more agile operations. Indeed, while companies can choose whether to introduce short run promotions, future regulatory changes are non-negotiable. New packaging demands, such as the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), will inevitably lead to more SKUs and product complexity that will place a significant burden on existing loading and unloading processes, and test the agility of operations to respond.

Companies in all markets are also wrestling with the continued supply chain challenges created by geopolitical uncertainty. Swivelling in response to shipping delays, fast rising costs, even the creation of completely new supply chain routes demands new levels of agility and responsiveness, especially if they are to still keep up with short promotional windows. Yet while production and logistics models based on real-time data provide immediate insight to support rerouting, the lack of visibility within the cumbersome and slow manual unloading docks is effectively an information black hole that is adding significant operational risk. Without live dock-level insight into the progress of load/ unload activity, organisations are missing essential insight to join up the final component in the end-to-end supply chain management view essential for real-time decision making and supply chain responsiveness.

Automated Loading and Unloading

It is now a priority to create a seamless, agile and automated unloading and loading process that removes the current constraints and ensures the highly effective processes on either side – in manufacturing and logistics – can be optimised throughout. Replacing manual loading and unloading, which relies heavily on forklift trucks, with automated systems such as slipchain, moving floor, trailerskate and other automated container loading solutions, fundamentally transforms the way loading is managed within the end-to-end production and distribution model.

Cutting load times from 45 minutes to less than ten provides the scalability required to seamlessly respond to peaks in production, such as those driven by event-led product marketing campaigns. It reduces the number of people required to handle the load process, allowing the manufacturer to more effectively manage dedicated packaging requirements internally. Plus, it plugs the current black hole in end-to-end visibility, providing the information required to support a far more effective response to supply chain upheaval.

Conclusion

Automation within loading and unloading provides the foundation for a more agile business model, but it also unlocks incremental additional potential. End-to-end operational visibility enables real-time allocation of goods to specific loading bays to improve truck fill rates. It provides the scalability required to respond to new sustainability demands, from the inevitable increase in SKUs to the new demands to handle returns for recycling.

Critically, it enables product marketing to embrace creative innovation without facing a production stand-off or reliance on expensive third-party co-packing providers. With a super agile production and logistics model, including automated loading and unloading, manufacturer marketing teams can confidently embrace short run promotional innovation and maximise the global customer engagement opportunity.