When innovation boosts optimisation
About it
Rubinetterie Cristina was established in 1949 and has grown over the years to become one of the leading “protagonists of the sector”, a real point of reference in the sanitary fittings market. With two plants in Gozzano, one in Gargallo and another one in Fontaneto D’Agogna (in the province of Novara), with a total of 35 thousand square metres of covered area and 250 employees, Cristina rubinetterie is very proud of its made in italy production and that 56% of its turnover comes from foreign markets. The collaboration with internationally renowned design companies is the evidence of the great attention paid to the shape and quality of the product, being the result of rigorous monitoring of each phase of the production process combined with the use of reliable raw materials. This has enabled to obtain, year after year, the most important International quality certifications: quality marks of the single products (French NF, German LGA, Dutch KIWA, Swedish SVGW, American NSF 61) and the business quality certification according to UNI EN ISO 9001).
Objectives
Cristina rubinetterie carries out production and logistic activities in 4 different plants, which employ about 250 people. This is the fruit of a steady growth of the company in an area with poor potential for a uniform development, combined with a strategic policy which enabled to reach a high specialization level of its production sites. Instead of bringing together all activities in one plant, the company decided to invest in innovation to optimize flows and ensure high service and customization standards.
The implemented solutions
The first step was to start up a new plant in an ad hoc structure to replace the old warehouse, which combines an automated drawer warehouse, an automated vertical tray warehouse and traditional pallet racks served by trilateral lift trucks. These are connected to the picking stations through overhead handling lines. In a second step, an automated vertical shifting shelf warehouse was installed in an adjacent area, with three storage columns and two picking bays. At the heart of the whole structure is Incas Easystor software that manages and coordinates the goods flows and the activities of the operators involved.
Conclusions
Thanks to the new installation, Cristina has achieved higher flexibility, better service timing and reduced errors, and most of all the ability to manage at best fragmented orders. In addition, the improved service has brought with it a higher customer and supplier loyalty.
