Schneider Electric’s distribution center converts into smart area

/ Technology & Smart Cities / Tuesday, 30 July 2019 08:24

Schneider Electric announced that it has successfully completed the digital transformation of its flagship Pacific SMART distribution center (DC) in Ingleburn. The SMART DC is layered with Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure technology, which drives end-to-end efficiency for the industrial environment, and also houses an industry-leading Control Tower which is an innovative leap ahead for the supply chain management.

The SMART Ingleburn DC is the largest in the Pacific and spread over 17,500m2, operating 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. It dispatches 5,000 lines over 70 routes (air and road) daily, servicing a total of 3,500 customers in Australia and New Zealand. The Digitization of the SMART DC allows Schneider Electric to drive end-to-end efficiencies, bringing with it:

  • Agile management & Process Efficiency: Driving faster and better decisions from the teams to improve customer satisfaction and faster service
  • Asset Performance Management: Predictive analytics for reduced downtime and longer efficient operations
  • Empowered Operators: Access to real-time assets, data and innovative technology such as EcoStruxure Augmented Operator Advisor that allows increased efficiency in maintenance and processes and significant safety improvements
  • Energy Efficiency & Reliability: Reduced energy consumption through real-time insights delivered by EcoStruxure Resource Advisor and Facility Expert. This approach has shown potential savings of up to 30% energy savings.

The Ingleburn SMART DC hosts Schneider Electric’s Pacific Control Tower, a hub that improves supply chain visibility to detect and mitigate Supply Chain issues and interruptions to significantly improve predictability and reliability for customers.

“The innovative approach brings together in a single site logistics, customer care and personnel representing all our international and domestic transport carriers. This way information from global tracking dashboards can be openly and easily shared and discussed to quickly resolve queries and issues,” said Gareth O’Reilly, Zone President Schneider Electric.

“The Control Tower approach has demonstrated a strong return on investment with a 65 percent reduction in time taken to resolve complaints.”

Smart DC and End to End Control Towers are central to Schneider Electric’s tailored, sustainable and connected (TSC) 4.0 strategy which aims to empower our teams, improve customer experience and end-to-end operational efficiencies.

Gareth O’Reilly said, “We support our clients through the digitization journey with our EcoStruxure IoT-enabled system architecture and platform. The Ingleburn Distribution Centre is an important player in our global network of Smart sites that showcases the EcoStruxure offerings to customers.”

The SMART DC uses EcoStruxure Power in order to better understand and reduce energy usage and EcoStruxure Machine and EcoStruxure Plant to help optimize assets and operational performance.

Specific products showcased include:

  • PowerTags – wireless energy sensors that attach to circuit breakers and provide real-time electrical load data and e-mail alerts in the event of potential issues. 
  • Easergy sensors - temperature and humidity sensors that automatically measure, monitor and control energy consumption and demand.
  • Facility Expert - cloud-based software and access to real-time performance data to optimize your facility operations, maintenance and energy management.
  • Resource Advisor - to aggregate all cross-enterprise, energy and sustainability information in a single, cloud-based platform and transform data into actionable insights to improve business operations.
  • Machine Advisor – a cloud-based services platform used to track machines in operation, monitor performance data and fix exceptional events.
  • Augmented Operator Advisor – a custom application that leverages augmented reality for instant diagnosis and contactless maintenance. This has the ability to potentially reduce maintenance and support costs by up to 50%.

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