Cheng Loong

Cheng Loong's business & its challenage

Established in 1959, Cheng Loong Corp. started out manufacturing cardboard cartons. Since then, the company has increased sales by expanding its product range. In 1995, the company expanded into the household paper sector with its“ Andante” brand. Cheng Loong now has plants in 10 locations around Taiwan, and a network of production and sales facilities in China, Vietnam, Japan and the US. It manufactures 2.2 million tons of paper and paperboard annually, and produces 1.94 billion sq.m of processed products such as cardboard cartons.

The Zhubei Plant commenced operations in 1973. Although manufacturing lines were already fully automated, everything relating to finished products was done manually, from receiving, stacking and transporting to storage and retrieval, sorting and shipping. As well as taking time to transport items to the warehouse and move goods around, this also resulted in damage to goods and shipping errors due to conventional stacking and storage. Certain products also had to be outsourced to external warehouses, as a result of a shortage of inventory space.

Turning around approximately 270,000 cartons and 250 different products in 20 days

The automated warehouse is a fully integrated building, 78 m long by 43 m wide, with a ceiling height of 34 m. Equipped with six S/R machines, it has sufficient storage capacity for 13,536 pallets. The manufacturing and warehouse buildings are joined by an overhead bridge, as part of a large-scale system linked together by STV with around 440 m of rails. The warehouse handles approximately 270,000 cartons and 250 different items, with stored products turned around roughly every 20 days.

These distribution facilities have almost doubled the company’s storage capacity compared to previously. It can now stock everything onsite, rather than using external warehouses, manage inventory more accurately, and effectively implement first-in, first-out too. Cheng Loong has also eliminated damage to goods, and significantly reduced shipping errors. In addition, it is now also able to operate with almost half the workers it required previously.

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  Double-deep type automated warehouse, with eight STVs on the retrieval side.

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  Finished products are transported by vertical lifters or conveyors to a palletizing robot, and are then stacked on pallets.

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  After stacking, products are transported from the manufacturing building by STV for storage in the automated warehouse.