Herba Ricemills has turned to Mecalux to build an automated warehouse at its production site in San José de la Rinconada, north of Seville. The rice producer and trader, a subsidiary of Spain’s Ebro Foods, had run the operation manually until now.
Why Automate Now
The company is expanding internationally and juggling more SKUs across brands that include Brillante, Sabroz, Minute, Lassie and Cigala. Manual logistics no longer kept pace. To free up space and lift output, Mecalux fitted the warehouse with an automated Pallet Shuttle and stacker crane holding 5,400 pallet positions, plus semi-automated Pallet Shuttle racking, all run through its Easy WMS. AGVs shuttle semi-finished goods between the accumulation area and the production line, then on to the stacker-crane system.
The Numbers
Herba Ricemills reports a 25% productivity gain and a 95% drop in picking errors. “We can now precisely control every location, stock status and product flow through Easy WMS,” said Manuel Matías Martínez, logistics manager at the plant. The storage system rises 18.5 m.
A 95% error cut is the kind of number that tends to pull other Ebro Foods sites toward the same playbook.
