St. James Winery, based in St. James, MO is a leading wine producer in the
U.S. Increased growth and a lack of available labor led the company to
consider automation. St. James turned to MMCI Automation for an automated
packaging solution.
MMCI, a FANUC Authorized System Integrator located in St. Louis, MO
specializes in material handling and warehouse automation. MMCI evaluated
St. James’ manual process which included workers offloading glass bottles,
packing them into cases, taping, and palletizing full (and heavy) cases. The
work is very labor-intensive, and employees were experiencing fatigue which
slowed production and was starting to impact profit margins. MMCI went to
work to design an automated solution to help St. James overcome their
challenges and improve efficiencies.
The automated solution, which includes a FANUC M-410iC palletizing robot was
built and installed quickly, minimizing disruptions on the bottling line.
Today, the system works tirelessly to quickly fulfill increasing orders.
Employees were excited about the new technology and found it extremely easy
to learn and use. Now, with the robot doing the heavy lifting, operators
have moved to performing tasks that require higher skills, offering more
opportunities for future advancement.
In addition to helping alleviate the labor challenges, St. James has
achieved higher production speeds and better margins. In addition, the
company, which measures ROI in terms of labor per case has already realized
a 35 to 40 percent reduction in labor per case.
Looking ahead, St. James is considering adding more automation to further
improve production efficiency and stay ahead of increasing demands.