Every day WPS is working on achieving handsfree growing. What does this mean for greenhouse owner Thom Persoon of Forever Plants? About 1.5 years ago this tropical plant grower bought a WPS sorting and shipping system. The system is consists of the following functionalities: camera sorting, buffering belts (marketplace) with watering channels, flexible order picking, and 8 packing stations. This automation brings overview and savings in regards to labor.
“Before our new WPS system, we worked with smaller systems installed by WPS. Now that we have decided to sacrifice more greenhouse space for a larger buffering and sorting system, we noticed it brought us more peace of mind and overview in our order process. For our employees the work is less intense, their working stations are designed to be at an optimum working height. All this combined creates an easier workflow, which in turn makes our employees happier," says a grinning Thom between his foliage plants.
With a forklift pot fork, the plants are placed on a so-called buffering belt bench. From there the team moves the yucca’s or other green plants to the sorting buffer. They do this because they seek uniformity and some of the plants will have to go back to the greenhouse for a later date. Via another sorting bench the plants will go through a camera system. Here the plants are sorted for height, grade etc. After this the plants are directed to the shipping buffer (marketplace). The plants are staged here for orders. The camera system also automatically determines to which staging belts the plants have to go. The systems’ intelligence also makes sure there are no two rows of “large “plants next to each other. This to prevent any clinging from large branches while moving over the designated staging belts. Plants and employees are visibly happier.
Linking software ties production and sales together
By linking the ordering processing program from SDF to the system, orders are sent automatically to the packing stations. In the past, they had to enter orders from one program to the next, now everything flows over automatically bringing us one step closer to “Hands-Free Growing”. Plants are being moved to the employees with the least amount of handling. “This results in less stress for the plants, but also less stress for our packers,” adds Thom.
Partner in processes and Solutions
WPS has been a real partner for Forever Plants. Making the system as flexible as possible has been the real challenge for the WPS engineers. Robert, systems specialist at WPS, who was involved in the total design process, says: “All wishes the customer had for a system came together here. How can you utilize sorting and cleaning functions? Can this be combined in an order system, without an additional plant touch, before they are moved into the shipping buffer?
Service and maintenance are done together
Every WPS system requires maintenance. Forever Plants chose to dedicate their own technical staff for regular maintenance task and repair jobs. This works well for the WPS service team. When more complex and deeper maintenance jobs arise the WPS team is standing by.
