Gerber Foods Soft Drinks Ltd July 2004

Gerber Foods Soft Drinks Ltd(GFSD) is the largest UK producer of ambient and chilled juice and juice drinks. The company operates in all sectors of the market place from super markets to food service and produces over 700 million litres of juice and juice drinks, for customer label and branded customers, each year. Brands produced include Ocean Spray, Libby's and Libby's Organic, Welch's, SunPride, Fruit Passion (Fair trade juice), Thomas the Tank Enginea nd Friends, Um Bongo and Southern Delight.

In 2001, the purchase of Emig, Germany's major juice producer, resulted in GFSD becoming part of the largest juice group in Europe. The group now operates in fourteen European countries and manufactures juice in three other purpose built factories- two in Germany and one in Poland. UK operations are based at Bridgewater, Somerset and GFSD employaround 850 staff, in the manufacturing plant on Wembdon Road and the Storage, Distribution and Admin site on Bristol Road.
To guarantee the highest quality standards in production and logistics, Gerber Foods Soft Drinks, were one of the first companies to install an RFsystem, back in the early 1990's, but the old narrow band system took time to communicate between the AS/400 system and terminals, which led to delays in processing information. The out dated fixed head scanners were also becoming unreliable and no longer suitable for operations.
-The scanners allowed no room for driver error, and any excessive vibration or knocks would push the scanner mirrors out of synch", says Phil Nash, Warehouse Supervisor.
-Fork lift operators ended up having to "work the forks' up and down to align the scanner to read the barcode", continues Phil.
-We realised that installing an updated and more robust solution in the warehouse would ultimately allow usto provide a better service for our customers", comments Alan Armstead, General Manager- Logistics Operations.

A 24-7 operation, the 25,000 square metre ambient distribution facility in Bristol Road was chosen for the first phase of standardising theen tire operation, including the chilled and production environments. Gerber selected Sandpiper Corporation Limited to specify and design the wireless infrastructure, and supply a mobile computing and barcode scanning system to meet the requirements of the existing business, that would also provide a platform to support growing wireless demands in the future. Sandpiper recommended LXE hardware as part of their proposal including the unique SpireT Antenna solution, which was crucial to the cost-effective implementation of the system.
-The LXE solution allows us to use the latest IEEE802.11b compliant radio technology whilst minimising the number of access points required to cover the warehouse area.

The coverage provided by each LXE Spire Access Point is very impressive, particularly in view of the liquids and metal racking," comments Phil.
-We selected Sandpiper for the completeness of its offering and their professional understanding and experience of our operational requirements" continues Alan,
-and LXE products were our preferred choice because of the harsh environment in which we operate".
-Working with liquids in a high speed operation, our principal requirements were a rugged unit with a high IP rating, and LXE satisfied all our demands".

Sandpiper proposed a solution that would integrate with Gerber's existing application software and provide an alternative means of scanning the pallet labels. This had previously been achieved using scanners fixed to the forkc arriage but it was recommended that hand held scanners be implemented to improve the speed of theoperation .
-We utilise the RF system as the medium between scanning the pallets and physically moving the goods. This ensures our stock records are kept up to date and provide real time information", says Phil.

Gerber deploy both hand held and vehicle-mounted computers at their facility. Forklift operators have LXE VX1's mounted on their trucks with Powerscan extralong range scanners, while despatch staff utilise the LXEMX2 hand held unit. The double deck trailers arriving daily from the production facility deliver all finished products to the distribution warehouse. All cases have a pre-assigned destination allocated by the AS/400 system and pallet tickets that have already been applied by production. The fork lift operators receive the location detailson the VX1,which provides all the particulars of the end destination on the large easy to read screen. The operator scans the pallet before off loading, ensuring that the AS/400 system retains a consistent up to date location record. The wheeled merchandising units or "dollys' utilised by Gerber require lot traceability, so hand held units are used by staff at the despatch loading bay to provide updates of the stock position in real time.

A critical element of the solution required Sandpiper and LXE to provide a dataediting facility, allowing Gerberto personalise their computer system to suit their internal requirements. All scanners were adapted to read only the "middle' set of digits (10-17) from the 18 digit barcode.
-We wanted to adapt proven technology, and the dataediting facility minimised the disruption to operations", says Alan.
-Sandpiper's Professional Services focus on customer requirements and ensure that where necessary all applications are adapted to meet our customer needs. We endeavour to install and commission our solutions in a cost effective and efficient manner with minimal disruption to our customers business", adds Simon Hagenbuch, Managing Director, Sandpiper Corporation Limited.

Gerber are expanding operations,and have already purchased a further 38 acres of land in Bridgwater where they plan to build a new factory and distribution site over the coming year.
-We wanted a partner we could grow with", says Alan.
-Sandpiper and LXEwere selected after an extensive SWOT analysis of the operation and its current and future requirements. We were confident that in terms of optimum flexibility for the future, Sandpiper and LXE were the right choice".
"Sandpiper and LXE are looking forward to working with Gerber Foods Ltd on their current requirements and helping them deploy this project throughout the next few phases of their business expansion" comments Simon.