When accuracy meets sustainability: evian

Evian Interview  from E80 Group on YouTube.

evian is a natural history that began thousands of years ago in the enchanting landscapes of Haute-Savoie. The water is slowly filtered by nature and acquires its unique and balanced composition of mineral salts before emerging in Évian-les-Bains. Now known as evian natural mineral water, it is accessible at several springs in the region and it is bottled in a unique plant. It is a brand that has been carrying out environmental protection actions for more than 30 years in partnership with local communities to ensure the exceptional quality of its water. Thanks to the energy and know-how of the evian team, the site has been able to reinvent itself to continue innovating in terms of packaging and sustainable development.In France, for example, it was the first to integrate recycled plastic (rPET, recycled PET). The ambition is to become a circular brand in the coming years, integrating 100 percent recycled PET into its bottles.

The objective

The desire to innovate and the need to respond to the market demand have prompted evian to rethink its flows within the plant, optimizing all operations in the logistics chain. Our experience in intralogistics, our extensive references in the beverage sector, and our ability to carry out in-depth and tailored studies were the key factors that led the French company to resort to our Group.

The project

In 2013, our Group developed a project over several phases, during which we carefully analysed evian's needs and assessed how our hardware and software solutions would be able to provide them with an integrated and automated management of intralogistics flows and supervision of all processes. This flow management and automation project was integrated into a complete plant transformation project.

This made it possible to intervene and implement the new flow with LGVs without ever interrupting the production, so that the customer could continue to meet the market demands even during the implementation. In the initial analysis and study phase, our Group successfully tested the use of 2 automated laser-guided vehicles (LGVs) and developed a customized soft drop system for automated and safe preform handling. We then added 27 more LGVs to integrate operations within the plant, handling and transferring 300 pallets per hour from our fourteen robotic wrapping systems to the shipping area where they are loaded onto trucks and trains.

The solution

We then developed a Block Storage solution to store about 17,000 pallets in a new building. This system communicates with the pre-storage areas through 38 LGVs. The automated and laser-guided vehicles ensure efficient rotation and complete product traceability, as well as reduced CO2 emissions through the integration with the customer's ERP system. In fact, all flows and missions of the LGVs are synchronized and controlled by our SM.I.LE80 software platform, which enables the optimization of the production line performance and material transportation without errors or loss of time. To further complete the bottling plant and develop an end-to-end solution, in the fourth and final phase of the project we added 20 LGVs to supply the 12 bottling lines (cartons, labels...), for a total of 87 LGVs.

Finally, to further increase the efficiency and reliability of the entire plant, all processes can be remotely monitored by our 24/7 digital helpdesk so that, if necessary, on-site technical collaborators can intervene without delay, checking the path of LGVs and the number of pallets on each line. The result? Over 6,500 pallets handled per day and immediately shipped to every corner of the world.

These cutting-edge and sustainable solutions have many strengths: high levels of safety, total traceability of the products, reduction of waste, reduced margin of errors and the prompt answer to customer requests.