Bakery Finds the Right Automation Ingredients
Clients in the News: Martin’s Famous Pastry Shoppe is a global bread and roll manufacturer headquartered in Chambersburg, Pa. From humble beginnings in a 1950s family garage turned bakery, the company’s products are now sold through grocery stores, big box stores, restaurants and institutions in 16 countries. After installing a robotic materials handling solution, the company improved virtually all warehouse metrics while adding the flexibility to adapt to seasonal spikes.
Summer is one of the best times of the year for Martin’s, but the seasonal spike presented major distribution challenges. Completely manual processes for order picking and fulfillment took considerable time, so they needed to plan and prep loads hours in advance of dispatch, which created further problems when there were last-minute changes.
During peaks, the facility struggled to accommodate a higher volume of goods and increase seasonal staff. In addition to risk of errors in order fulfillment, managers had concerns over employee safety while bending, lifting and moving products around the warehouse.
