CEVA Logistics awarded Il Logistico dell' Anno - Technological and Logistics 4.0 at Assologistica Award in Italy

 

• Reward for the company's innovation and sustainability initiatives thanks to an automation project implemented for the labelling of automotive batteries
• The new project labelled 1.5 million batteries per year and broke even in less than three years
• 11th time the company has won an Assologistica Award in Italy

 

Milan, Italy, 16th December 2020 – CEVA Logistics in Italy has won “Il Logistico dell’Anno Award for the eleventh time in a row.  At a live streaming awards ceremony held this morning in Milan, and hosted by Assologistica 2020, it is one of the most important events in the national logistics sector calendar in Italy.

This year’s win was particularly notable for the awarding of the prestigious prize, in the "Technological and Logistics 4.0" category - an automation project CEVA implemented for the labelling of automotive batteries.

The solution created and delivered by CEVA for one of the most important Italian manufacturers of automotive batteries is part of the storage and distribution activities carried out for this customer at a plant located in Monselice (PD).

The process consisted of labelling neutral batteries aimed at branding, with trademarks. The whole operation is performed with an anthropomorphic robotic arm - located on an automatic line - which takes the batteries from a pallet and places them on the conveyor belt of another automatic line, on which automatic labelling machines activate when the batteries pass.

The same procedure also takes place in reverse: once the labelling operations are completed, another anthropomorphic arm takes the already branded batteries and places them back on a pallet. Battery after battery, the robot works and also inserts separators between the battery layers and creates a complete pallet. From there it automatically moves towards the filming machine, which wraps it with a shrink wrapped film - able to guarantee its safety during transport.  

This innovative process includes other services with high added value, such as overprinting content on the label in real time, during the affixing of the label. This is particularly useful when the customer requires different information - for different types of batteries - which may have to be generated at a moment’s notice, such as changes to safety data specific to certain countries.

The software used to perform these operations stores "n" palletizing schemes (which ae not necessarily the same in input and output), it knows the size of the batteries, the labelling schemes, the information to be overwritten and of course the possibility that some of them will be thermo registered.

This generates an extremely high number of combinations of potential actions, which the CEVA Logistics team has managed to enter into a structured database constantly updated by the team.

The benefits of the new project go beyond savings for the customer, which has been able to recoup his investment in three years. Production capacity has now been increased to 1.5 million batteries per year. Moreover, the quality of the labelling has improved thanks to this complete automation and the consequent reduction of the manual component and a longer residual life of the machinery is also guaranteed.

Says CEVA Logistics’ Aldo Fierro, Head of Solution and Operation Engineering: "I am extremely happy and proud of this award . We believed in this project from the beginning when we decided to push one step further by offering the customer a completely innovative warehousing activity compared to his previous one.

 “The propensity for innovation does not emerge only from the technology of the solution, but from our enterprising and initiative approach to the market. This allowed us to give the customer a winning proposal with high added value. And this was the final factor in winning the business".

 

About CEVA Logistics

CEVA Logistics, a world reference in third-party logistics, provides and operates transportation and supply-chain solutions for large or medium size national and multinational companies. CEVA Logistics offers a broad range of services in both Contract Logistics and Freight Management thanks to 78,000 employees, operating over 1,000 facilities in more than 160 countries. CEVA Logistics’ experienced specialists focus on seamlessly designing end-to-end customized solutions to meet the complex and rapidly evolving supply chain needs whatever the business sector. CEVA Logistics is part of the CMA CGM Group, a world leader in shipping and logistics.