Suntory Beverage & Food France, a subsidiary of the Japanese group Suntory and French leader in fruit-based soft drinks with its emblematic brands Orangina, Oasis and Schweppes, calls on Alstef Group for a major automation project adjacent to its plant in Donnery, near Orléans, France.
The Suntory Beverage & Food France production center has favored a storage solution adjacent to the site, for greater efficiency and proximity, and to support growth in volumes, with the construction of a new building dedicated to storage, directly linked to the production site.
The complete automated system designed by Alstef Group will include installation and management of the 12,000 sqm mass storage warehouse. The 48,000 pallet locations will be supplied by 36 storage shuttles distributed over nine levels, with multi-depth storage. The transfer of pallets of finished products leaving production will be handled by a shuttle loop made up of 46 shuttles linking the original factory to the new storage warehouse via a gallery. The warehouse will also be linked to the shipping and receiving area by a second shuttle loop. This solution is an efficient response to the large flows to be handled, and to the remoteness of the site’s functional areas.
The entire system will be controlled by the OPAL software suite, developed by Alstef Group. The WCS will act as the installation’s conductor, ensuring optimum management of stock and flow handling to support the plant’s high production rates, strong flows, and large number of batches.
“We are delighted to begin our collaboration with Suntory Beverage & Food France. This large-scale project reflects the expertise of our teams in designing a tailor-made system aimed at operational efficiency and meeting the specific business and process requirements of Suntory Beverage & Food France. This is one of the most important intralogistics projects ever won by Alstef Group, and all our teams are mobilized to guarantee its success” declares Nicolas Breton, Managing Director of Alstef Group.
On June 19, the groundbreaking ceremony for the new building brought together Suntory Beverage & Food France and all the project’s stakeholders, marking an important milestone in its development. Commissioning of the Alstef Group automated system is scheduled for early 2025.