UNIPET INTERNATIONAL ACHIEVES FLEXIBLE AUTOMATION WITH HERBERT

General Manager Paul Butler explains “With the amount of publicity that is created by various organisations, the RSPB for example, the interest in looking after wild birds has grown enormously and whereas in the past the supply of bird food was seasonal, better education has now taken away the seasonal trends and demand for bird food is now all year round.

Even with the recession, because the cost of bird food is low, you wouldn’t for example be able to go away on holiday with the savings you would make by stopping buying bird food and with more people having more time to spend at home - the enjoyment of watching wild birds in your own garden is immense.

So we now have a recession proof product that is growing year on year, while this is an enviable situation for us to be in it did mean that we have had to seriously update our packaging process. Gone are the days when we could keep up with demand using manual labour and although our product may be recession proof our business like any other has to seriously manage costs while excelling in customer service.

The key is flexible automation, by implementing systems we are now able to meet demand that can be stepped up or down at a moments notice without having any significant impact on our cost base.

One prime example of this is the automatic label applicator provided by Herbert, their PA10E automatic applicator has replaced what was originally a manual operation which was inherent with staffing issues and also costly, since we have implemented the Herbert PA10E applicator we now have guaranteed label placement accuracy which on a product like ours is not an easy achievement and running at 3 times the speed of our previous capability, and we can further increase production literally at the touch of a button.”

Thursday, October 15, 2009