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CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS
NOVEMBER 2016
34
Having started production in July 2014, last
month FAW Vehicle Manufacturers South
Africa celebrated the company’s 2 000
th
truck
to roll off the production line at its Coega,
Eastern Cape plant.
Jianyu Hao, CEO of FAW SA, gives credit
for the achievements of the company to the
employees. “With such a large workforce,
our aim has been to keep the manufacturing
logistics simple, yet thoroughly in line with
strict built standards as well as safety, health
and environmental regulations. Thanks to a
disciplined and dedicated workforce, we
have maintained our standards and have
even received an international FAW award in
recognition for our outstanding quality.”
Within a relatively short period since
opening the US$ 60 million Coega plant,
FAW Vehicle Manufacturers South Africa
reports growing returns, despite the sluggish
markets. “This is mostly evident in the steady
advance in the number of exports, with local
customers’ confidence increasing in the FAW
brand.”The results affirm the initial trust and
commitment made by the Chinese truckmaker.
The company believes that its success has,
to some extent, spearheaded other Chinese
goods manufacturers to invest and expand
their operations to South Africa. “FAW SA is
resolute in having chosen South Africa as its
base for the southern African region,” says
Hao. “We have become a proud business
citizen of South Africa and positively affirm
our original assessment of SA with the motto
– Built in South Africa, for Africa.”
Adjacent to its vehicle manufacturing plant,
FAW has made a further multi-million Rand
investment in a truck body-building facility
which includes a fully-fledged paint shop.
The company reports that sales of FAW trucks
have tracked strong upward growth year-on-
year over the past few years (2013 to 2016). To
date, the FAW medium-weight 8.140FL range
is ranked second in the 5 t truck segment. This
after only one year on the market.
b
FAW’S 2 000
TH
TRUCK
MILESTONE IN JUST TWO
YEARS
APC provides turnkey solution to Intermodal Cargo Solutions
SENSOR SOLUTIONS FOR SHUTTLE
SYSTEMS IN INTRALOGISTICS
Operators in the field of intralogistics are under
pressure to achieve greater throughput, while
remaining agile and flexible. And this calls for
more efficient utilisation of space, as well as
more sustainable use of resources, including
shuttle solutions. This, in turn, places higher
demand on the growing requirements for
small but still powerful sensor solutions and
automation components.
Leuze offers high-end solutions with ap-
plication know-how in all areas of intralogis-
tics, and the significant advantage of this is
that the solution is from a single source. One
mega trend in intralogistics, which can be
attributed to the rapidly developing e-com-
merce sector, is the volatility of markets and
competitive conditions. On the one hand,
there are increasing volumes of parcels that
need to be shipped. This results in increased
order picking and associated processing.
And on the other hand, smaller orders cause
growing uncertainty for the manufacturer
and this impacts on forward planning. As a
result, procurement, production and distribu-
tion become considerably more complex.
This scenario makes innovation topics
such as Industry 4.0 ever more important for
intralogistics, and increases the need to cre-
ate integrated networking and transparency
as well as to constantly improve speeds,
precision, flexibility and availabilities. The
growing demands that all intralogistics
applications place on sensors are particu-
larly evident in modern shuttle solutions.
Shuttles are extremely flexible, dynamic
and, not least, also resource-friendly with
regard to space utilisation and energy con-
sumption.
For such systems, reliable, space saving
sensors are needed for fine positioning, for
the detection of free spaces, presence mon-
itoring and for collision prevention. For all
these tasks, Leuze offers suitable solutions
that ensure availability and can be easily and
quickly mounted and commissioned.
Whether organic surfaces such as wood,
metal or plastics, and whether matt, deep
black or glossy, the Leuze ODS 10 and HT
10 optical distance sensors offer a constant
switching point. These sensors function
TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS
FAW Vehicle Manufacturers South Africa has
celebrated the production of its 2 000 th truck
at its Coega plant.
Africa’s leading warehouse storage solutions
company, APC Storage Solutions SA,
completed the installation of a turnkey system
for Customs Franchised Container Freight
Station Company, Intermodal Cargo Solutions.
The contract to supply a pallet shuttle system
was awarded against a number of competitors
due to its numerous benefits and a design to
aid the client develop a final solution. This
included a sprinkler system, for which one of
APC Storage Solutions SA’s business partners
was used.
Intermodal Cargo Solutions had been in
talks with one of APC Storage Solutions
SA’s competitors and required an additional
service provider to propose and quote on a
similar solution. APC Storage Solutions SA
was approached and took time to understand
all the client’s needs, including facility lay-
out, load units, pick rates and throughputs,
to mention a few. The fact that Intermodal
was dealing with various companies, each
able to provide only a part of the overall re-
quired solution, counted substantially in APC
Storage Solutions SA’s favour, as it was in a
position to manage the entire project. With
this information at hand, the team submitted
a design to meet the client’s requirements,
which led to the contract being awarded to
APC Storage Solutions SA.
Approximately 110 containers are received
by Intermodal fortnightly and 5 500 pallets
dispatched, resulting in total warehouse
turnaround every two weeks. “Our proposed
solution meant that we needed to take the
standard operating procedures, business
rules and active target rate of receiving and
dispatch into consideration, as well as re-
ceiving and dispatch door locations. This was
necessary to allow the customer to optimally
plan for pick and replenishment waves with-
out negatively impacting on the warehouse
flows,” says Ettienne Meyburgh, general
manager – KZN Region & Automation, APC
Storage Solutions SA.
APC Storage Solutions SA provided the
first block of 30 m wide, five levels high
and 68 pallets deep; and another block of
10 m wide, four levels high and 20 pallets
deep, coupled with a world-class Wi-Fi ra-
dio pallet shuttle system operating on the
FIFO principle. The installed pallet shuttle
system is designed to prevent or minimise
damage to racking units, to best control
FIFO and batch receive and dispatch oper-
ations. It also boosts pallet load and unload
rates, and therefore throughput rates. The
pallet shuttles moves along special rails at-
tached to the racking, eliminating the need
for aisles as storing and extracting pallets is
achieved via remote control using WiFi-en-
abled tablets.
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