Smart tracking solution: Santos joins forces with Orange Business to simplify its stock management with the help of IoT
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Rethinking stock management
Like all companies, small and medium-sized businesses need to rethink and innovate to accelerate their growth. Such was the case at Santos, a family-owned business producing electrical equipment for the food service sector. A small French business, Santos has undergone rapid development since its foundation in 1954. Each month, over 5,000 products leave its factories and are exported to 150 countries.
The company quickly found itself running out of space to store the 2,500 different types of spare parts it needs to keep on hand. The teams from Santos attempted to optimize their space by stowing pallets in every available storage area. However, this random arrangement began to disrupt the work of assemblers, who could no longer be sure where to find individual parts. As a result, it would take them around 15 minutes to find each pallet they were looking for.
We’re extremely satisfied with the smart tracking solution. It functions perfectly, and our product assemblers use it every day. It has enabled us to make the leap into industry 4.0.
Isabelle Bodar, Production Manager at Santos
Digitizing operations to boost comfort and performance
The company sought an innovative solution to optimize the management of spare parts stocks. After meeting with various solutions integrators, the electrical goods manufacturer selected Orange Business. For Santos’ management, the suitability of the solution and the level of support provided were the deciding factors in their decision.
The concept offered by Orange Business has proven to be ingenious: facilitating the search for spare parts pallets using an IoT (Internet of Things) indoor geotracking solution, enabling staff to visualize each pallet via a light signal. This simply required a tag to be placed on each pallet, which will blink when searched for using a smart tracking app.
IoT: a powerful asset for the industrial sector
The smart tracking solution delivers significant time savings and enhanced workplace satisfaction for Santos assemblers. While they used to spend an average of 15 minutes looking for a pallet, this search time has been reduced considerably: in barely 15 seconds, the spare parts pallet can be identified within the stockpile.
“The solution is also highly appreciated by our quality manager. Prior to its implementation, it was difficult for us to adhere to the FIFO (First In First Out) method, which involves removing stock from the first pallet entered. Our assemblers had trouble finding their way through over 600 pallets containing 2,500 different types of spare parts. Today, this is no longer an issue! Thanks to the geolocalization of the pallets, it is now possible to remove stock based on the order it arrived, enabling our quality manager to issue more rapid feedback to suppliers, which ultimately means we end up discarding fewer defective parts,” adds Isabelle Bodar, Production Manager at Santos.
Stock management has been improved considerably, which in turn boosts profitability: the solution eliminates the need to over-order to cover any potential shortfalls, and therefore enables optimization of the storage space. “We’re extremely satisfied with the smart tracking solution. It functions perfectly, and our product assemblers use it every day. It has enabled us to make the leap into industry 4.0.”
The average time needed to locate spare parts has gone from 15 minutes to
15 seconds