Spare parts delivered to professional kitchens faster than ever

Reduced storage space leads to more efficient deliveries

Dieta Oy, one of Finland’s leading suppliers of complete professional kitchens, helps its customers thrive. When service needs arise, fast spare part deliveries contribute to achieving this goal.

Dieta Service’s central warehouse in Helsinki holds over 6,000 original spare part items, which are delivered to various locations in Finland within 24 hours if needed. The extensive assortment ensures successful and fast service actions.

Challenge

The company had to find a new solution for its spare parts storage after its after-sales operations grew strongly. “We needed more office space for our after-sales operations and workshop space but had to stay within the same walls. A traditional spare parts shelving solution would take up significantly more floor space in the warehouse and would not enable us to utilise room height,” says After-Sales Director Jyri Lankinen.

Today's customers require faster spare part deliveries, so there was more pressure to improve the company’s operational efficiency.

Solution: Spare parts are fast and efficiently available in Agilon

In  2017, Dieta ordered a Konecranes Agilon material handling and management system featuring one robot and two access stations.

Whereas the spare parts storage earlier occupied 168 square metres of floor space, Agilon now takes up only 39.6 square metres, plus some floor space around the access stations. This leaves 100 square metres of space to be used for other purposes. The savings equals 100 m2 x Helsinki area rent/m2/month. In spring 2019, the system was extended by 25 per cent to its current size of 12 metres in width and 5.6 metres in height.

The space where the spare parts are stored also houses Dieta’s outlet. Now, Agilon provides a neat and professional look in the room where customers can do their shopping.

Agilon is integrated into Dieta’s enterprise resource planning system and currently holds about 4,500 spare parts.

Achieving real-time inventory balance and ensuring good work ergonomics with the automated warehouse Agilon

Agilon makes collecting spare parts more efficient: there is no longer any need to walk around the warehouse to search for them. You can check the balance at the portal or the access station in no time. When Dieta’s service staff needs spare parts, they are always available in the warehouse without any waiting time.

As Agilon pre-picks parts and brings them close to the access station doors, picking and deliveries are faster. Additionally, while Agilon picks a product, other spare parts can be packed and labelled simultaneously. Using Agilon for picking parts significantly saves time each day.

Incoming parts are stored in Agilon using a single access station. Managing stock and reorganizing items is now simpler, eliminating the need to plan separate shelf locations for new products.

Before implementing automated storage Agilon, we organized the shelves according to our established principles; however, finding space for products from new suppliers or new models from our current suppliers was challenging. It has been estimated that the time Dieta saves each month on stock maintenance and rearrangement is equivalent to the workload of one full-time employee per day.

In the Helsinki metropolitan region, spare parts are available faster for service visits since service representatives and on-call subcontractors can now pick up parts from the system without help from the spare parts staff.

Additionally, the system has streamlined occupational instructions and guidance, making it easier and faster for new and temporary employees, as well as team members, to understand their roles.

A significant drop in the inventory need

Information about any person who has removed a spare part from or put one into Agilon is registered into the system, contributing to correct real-time balances and avoiding sudden critical spare part shortages. Inventory need has decreased. Only large parts that do not fit into Agilon need to be inventoried. Earlier, it took four people one weekend to do inventory, whereas now it takes three less than one day.

User safety and ergonomics have improved as the ergonomic access stations have removed the need to reach up for high shelves or crouch to reach low shelves. Additionally, parts that are seldom used no longer collect dust.