Accolade Wines is a worldwide provider of premium, commercial and value wines. Its facility in Avonmouth processes 100,000 bottles every day, and employs the 5S workplace organisation method for efficiency and effectiveness.

As the leadership at Accolade Wines strived to live up to the standards of a 5S workplace, they sought to improve the management of tools and supplies at the facility. The old system of locking tools and supplies in a cabinet was causing problems. With little organisation or control in place, people would take things ranging from drill bits to a high-speed camera and misplace or hoard them in locations throughout the building.

Hayley SmartVend®

Accolade Wines installed three SmartVend automated dispensing devices from Hayley Group PLC and its technology partner, Apex Supply Chain Technologies®. An EDGE™ 5000 helical dispensing system holds consumable items such as tape, glue, drill bits and batteries. Adjacent to it are Axcess™ 6018 and 6036 lockers, with 18 and 36 doors respectively. The lockers hold reusable items such as drills and torches.

Employees use their personal ID cards to dispense items and, with the Axcess lockers, return them when they’re finished using them. Apex Trajectory Cloud™ software keeps track of who is using what, as well as monitoring inventory levels for everything stored in the system.

The EDGE and Axcess devices provide a higher level of organisation and visual management which is consistent with a 5S approach.

Savings in Labour and Consumption

The SmartVend devices immediately began driving increased efficiency. Every transaction is traced back to a personal ID card, so people take more accountability over what and how much they use, and are less likely to misplace or hoard tools and supplies.

“They’re conscious that if a tool is broken or damaged, they let people know what has happened to it instead of putting it back into the locker without telling anyone,” said Zoe Myhill, Business Maintenance Manager. “Knowing their name was attached to a tool led to a significant behavioural change that surprised us.”

The SmartVend system also generated significant time savings. With tools and supplies always available in the devices, there is no more time wasted searching for them. Myhill estimates that Accolade Wines is saving at least five hours each week that had been wasted looking for lost tools and supplies, or searching for a storeman to open the cabinets where they were locked up.

Once every year, Accolade Wines also conducts portable appliance testing (PAT) to ensure electrical equipment is up to standard. In the past, it was a struggle to find everything that needed to be tested, but with the tracking and control provided by Axcess lockers, PAT now takes just half a day, instead of a full day as before.

APEX

www.apexsupplychain.com

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