Laser Guided Vehicles

Challenge 

Opal came to us as rising consumer demand for biodegradable paper packaging was driving huge volume increases. They needed to drive efficiency across 3 business critical phases.  

1.  Delivery of the heavy Reels of raw material paper 
2. An AGV to pick up loaded stillages and transport to the bag making machine. 
3. 3 AGV’s to manage outfeed, palletisation and restocking of pallets after bag production.

This was a complex operation requiring a flexible process which was to test the routing technology and navigation skills within these machines. Add to this the need to maintain day-to day production at the plant as the install was underway and we had a real challenge on our hands! 

When installed in 2016, RML staff worked directly on site. Fast forward to 2022 when upgrading the processes and RML people can now work remotely with our customers – using built in VPN links to virtual computing systems and video conferencing.  

Solution 

In total we programmed, installed, and integrated four AGVs as per the stages above.  

In the outfeed phase, the solution transported finished pallets from five production lines to a centralised wrapper.  

Due to the tight production layout AGVs were specified over forklifts for increased operator safety. 

All the AGVs were programmed bring single pallets to each production line to reduce the quantity of wood present in the hygiene zone