LEADING MEAT SUPPLIER DRIVES PRODUCTIVITY WITH CIRRUS TECH AND KEPWARE

The Challenge

A top beef producer located in Dodge City, Kansas ships several thousand boxes of meat per hour.  The company requires a system that can read 20,000 tags from 10 PLCs every three seconds—reading, processing and returning the data—to ensure smooth routing of boxes for delivery.

From the warehouse to the retail location, the system requires complete automation with no human intervention.  Cirrus Tech designed an automation solution that could provide routing direction within seconds. Originally, the beef producer based its automation system on RSLinx drivers from Rockwell Automation with data collected from Allen-Bradley PLCs.  However, the performance was not meeting the company’s needs. “The drivers were slowing down the process—draining 80 percent of CPU space to read and respond to the more than 20,000 tags each second. The system just wasn’t getting it done,” said Chris Fonke, EVP of Software, Services & Solutions.  For Cirrus to help, it had to offer an automation solution that provides routing direction within seconds.

The Approach

In order to meet the company’s performance requirements based on its large tag count, Cirrus Tech knew it was time for the customer to change its automation processes from their three dispersed plants.  Cirrus Tech helped the plant pull data from dozens of PLCs and equipment, analyze the detail, and send direction back to the system controllers.

The Results

This customized Cirrus Tech Automation System solution easily filters information and provides direction within two seconds, a powerful single-point interface that interchanges data at lightning speed resulting in delivering a game-changing, extremely efficient solution to the customer.

CONTACT US FOR INFORMATION

Full Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By choosing “The Crane” ASRS System from Cirrus Tech, we have gained efficiencies through our entire warehouse; how we receive, rotate and shuffle back stock, cycle count, pick and replenish pick locations.  The real surprise was the efficiencies gained on the load building side. Cirrus Tech’s “Crane,” Cirrus WMS and Cirrus Directed Picking have helped us in all areas of the warehouse.

Jose Rivera

Company Name : J. J. Taylor Companies, Inc.
Designation : VP of Administration

Choosing Cirrus Tech to implement, manage and support our Cirrus Automated Case Picking System has turned out to be one of the best decisions we've ever made.  Cirrus Tech's commitment to partnership, coupled with their exceptional 24/7 support is best in the industry by a mile.  We are proud to be partners with Cirrus Tech.

Nick Economos

Company Name : Eagle Rock Distributing Company
Designation : President

The Cirrus Tech Crane System not only saved us from doing a costly expansion, it also helped us organize our warehouse in a manner that put efficiencies in places that we would have never realized by building a new warehouse.

Brad Nichols

Company Name : Eagle Distributing of Shreveport, Inc.
Designation : CEO

The Cirrus Tech Crane System provided our company an opportunity to consolidate an entire warehouse (Norfolk, NE) into the existing warehouse here in Fremont, NE.  It will incorporate 5 years of growth while providing less than a 5 year ROI with the efficiencies of the system.

Bruce Nelsen

Company Name : Eagle Distributing, Inc. in Nebraska
Designation : CEO

The Cirrus Crane System will increase our available pallet storage significantly. When we take into account the organization and many efficiencies the system will bring, this will be a real game changer for us in our warehouse.

Jeff Knight

Company Name : Cherokee Distributing Company
Designation : General Manager

The Crane System is the right fit for our operation. We will be able to build the expansion, place The Crane System inside of it and maximize the clear height to go 5 pallets high in the system. Because of the additional space savings, we will be able to absorb another operation into our existing building and still have optimal room for future growth. Cirrus is the industry leader in Crane System implementations in the beverage industry and we look forward to our partnership for years to come.

Rodney Long

Company Name : Long Beverage, Inc.
Designation : President

We’re confident that our new partnership with Cirrus Tech will provide critical support to the realization of our long-term strategic goals. In the near-term, the Cirrus Tech Crane System will play a key role in to our efforts to modernize our warehouse and delivery operations. As we look towards the completion of our new facility, our investment in the Crane System will result in a substantial one-time construction costs savings while providing a platform to realize impressive reoccurring annual warehouse efficiencies.

Frank Sourbeer Jr.

Company Name : Wilsbach Distributors, Inc.
Designation : President

The Cirrus System will provide our company with many years of growth along with excellent annual efficiencies that will allow us to best serve Birmingham and the surrounding areas. We are pleased to partner with a like-minded company like Cirrus Tech as partners in warehouse automation. We are looking forward to the implementation of our new system.

Louis Maisel

Company Name : Gulf Distributing Company of Birmingham
Designation : President

With Cirrus Tech's HLA approach to automation, our company is able to take advantage the best automation for our environment today (The Cirrus Tech Crane System) while giving us a vision and the ability to add components down the road that will provide our warehouse with a nearly fully automated solution. It is exciting to have a road map to full automation that we can grow into over time.

Frank B. Fuhrer III

Company Name : Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale Company
Designation : CEO