Gebo Cermex brings intelligence and a complete end-of-line solution to Intermarché plant

Moulin de la Chaume is one of the four industrial bakeries of Agromousquetaires, an integrated production division of the Intermarché Group. The site supplies frozen unbaked bread and frozen pre-baked bread predominantly to the group's platforms. Four production lines operate in three 8-hour shifts, five to six days a week, producing a total of over 17,000 tonnes of goods. More than 30 different types of white and speciality breads are processed by the bakery, packaged in six different cardboard case formats. 30 pallets come off the lines each hour, directed to one of 3,000 slots in the refrigeration chamber.

Devastated by a fire, the plant was entirely rebuilt and re-equipped. Pleased with Gebo Cermex’s performance on other projects within the Intermarché Group, the integrated design office of Agromousquetaires had no reservation in validating the choice of Moulin de la Chaume to trust the Gebo Cermex palletising/depalletising division for its end-of-line and intralogistics services. Six months after delivery of the last machine, on time and on budget, Nathalie Rauch recognises that she made the right decision - "What convinced us was the overall expertise, from the management of individual cases to storage of the finished pallet – it was not just the palletising aspect. This, coupled with the intelligence to make the whole thing work." 

Featuring several different technologies and components, the solution installed at the Moulin de la Chaume plant by Gebo Cermex is characterised by high operational intelligence and smooth integration into the production flow, contributing to the efficiency of the four lines, as well as improving operator safety and batch traceability.

Its supervision system covers manufacturing order management and provides full traceability of the pallets and cases: as fully connected with the customer’s ERP, the information printed on the labels are detected and sent to the Moulin de la Chaume product information system. This is all done from a single interface terminal, enabling all operations to be handled from one central point. A further benefit is that this system allows pallet patterns to be automatically optimised based on the features of references which are recorded and stored in the ERP.

The two AGVs supplied are driver-less forklift trucks for pallet stacking, providing the link between the palletising cells and the stretch-wrappers that operate with the full pallets. They also deliver the stacked empty pallets to the cells, as well as carrying pallets of cardboard cases to the line’s case erectors. As the AGVs are laser-guided, they require no civil engineering changes to the site. Featuring automatic battery change, they ensure 360° safety by detecting any passive or moving obstacles.

The four robotic palletising cells, featuring a 6-axis robot and case labeller, offer brushless motorised gripping tools which are 100% automatically adjustable for format changes. These tools have been further optimised in recent months to enrich the recently launched RoboAccess® palletising solution from Gebo Cermex. This ensures fully automatic format changeovers. Each robot has a Human Machine Interface (HMI), with PalDesigner® software included for the creation of new palletising formats and patterns.