We collaborate in the new automated platform of the Monbake group in Noblejas
The Monbake group is finalising the expansion of its logistics centre in Noblejas (Toledo) with the support of our engineering team. Thanks to this project, which is in its final stage to finalise the last details, the complex will have a surface area of more than 7,000m2 and 11 loading and unloading bays.
The Monbake business group, the third largest national operator in the frozen dough sector, is finishing off the final details of the project to expand its robotised logistics platform in the municipality of Noblejas (Toledo) with the help of our Engineering team, which has been in charge of the design and project management, as well as the management of suppliers and different administrative procedures derived from the project.
The complex will open its doors in the second half of 2023, as its supply chain director, Robert Morales, has announced, and will have a built surface area of 7,075 m2 and 11 loading and unloading docks. In terms of capacity, this will rise to 23,000 total pallets for frozen products, with the entry into operation of 11,500 new spaces, which will allow “a movement of more than 200 pallets per hour, which could be transferred to a capacity of loading and unloading operations close to 100 trucks per day”, the manager explains.
“Although this is an expansion of the existing logistics centre, it entails a series of improvements in the processes, especially in the loading and unloading of lorries, allowing a reduction in the time spent on these operations, with fewer movements required for each load and greater simultaneity”, comments Robert Morales. The installation, which will have more than 500 SKUs in stock, will also be equipped with stacker cranes and an electro-rail for automatic dispatch, and its management “will be carried out with the communication of the systems that will manage the entire installation, a WMS (Warehouse Management System) developed in SAP and the storage systems installed by Mecalux”.
With the opening of the new silo, Monbake seeks, on the one hand, to increase storage capacity, which, in turn, will allow it to abandon the use of external warehouses and meet the production growth recorded in recent years. It is no coincidence that its volume of frozen dough already exceeds 205,000 tonnes per year, with a turnover of 378 M€. In addition, the centre under construction will improve the level of service offered to customers and the productivity of the neighbouring plant, the group’s largest, which, like the warehouse, “works 24×7”.
One operation, two logistics teams
Managed by Monbake’s own staff, the Noblejas logistics centre centralises all the links in the supply chain, “from the moment the product leaves the production lines until it reaches the customer”. There, the group has a conventional racking chamber, where order preparation, picking, re-labelling and special handling are carried out, “all by means of automatic order preparation systems based on Pick to Voice”. With regard to transport, goods are shipped from the La Mancha facility to the whole of Spain, including the Canary Islands and export clients, destined both for the platforms of large distributors/customers and for some of their secondary warehouses. In total, “we move 300 capillary delivery trucks daily and more than 100 trailers”, explains the Supply Chain Director.
After the expansion, Monbake will reach a storage capacity of 60,000 pallets distributed among its four platforms, to which must be added 23 secondary warehouses throughout Spain. “Logistically, we are divided into two teams. One manages capillary distribution, which plans the 300 daily routes that leave our branches from Monday to Saturday to end customers, a large part of the service carried out by external companies. And a second team is responsible for long-distance transport, in the hands of different partners who are assigned specific areas”, Morales explains. The latter also manages the orders of distributors, retailers and export clients, and combines the routes with the supply to their branches. “In this way, we manage to optimise the filling of lorries with our capillary service warehouses”, he concludes.
