From Manual Movement to Autonomous Material Flow

Sun Chemical had AGVs ready across three warehouses but no system to dispatch them. SkyIO integrated SAP Warehouse Management with the plant floor using Ignition and Sepasoft, which automated material flow from receiving to shipping. Transfer orders now run automatically, and coordinators track every AGV delivery in real time.

CASE STUDY

Capabilities Demonstrated

The Client:
Sun Chemical, a global chemical manufacturer

The Starting Point

Pallets Built by Hand and Picks on Paper

Across three warehouses, material moved on manual effort: pallets built by hand in the ERP system, forktruck putaway, paper pick packets printed and highlighted by a coordinator, transfer orders confirmed after the fact.

Sun Chemical saw what AGVs could do, but an AGV is only as smart as the system dispatching it. Making automation real meant connecting warehouse management to the vehicles on the floor, in every workflow from the receiving dock to the shipping conveyor.

The Approach

Three Warehouses with a Single Foundation

The solution enabled remote factory acceptance testing (FAT) of the batch automation system that SkyIO had developed for the customer.

  • Receiving | Operators scan materials at receiving, where the system builds the pallet and prints a label. The conveyor PLC scans the label, creates a transfer order, and an AGV puts the pallet away in the next open bin.
  • Production Staging | Planners schedule next-day material moves in advance. Urgent requests skip the schedule and dispatch an AGV immediately. The system tracks bin levels continuously and triggers replenishment before anything runs short.
  • Product Queue | The system continuously monitors reactor bin levels and triggers replenishment before materials run short. Using scheduled batch start times and active process orders, AGVs automatically retrieve and deliver required raw materials to dedicated reactors.
  • Finished Goods | The coordinator selects a delivery, picks pallets from a first-in-first-out list, and one click dispatches the AGVs and creates the transfer orders. No paper packet required.

The Success

One Workflow, Receiving to Shipping

Today, material flows from receiving to putaway, staging, and shipping on a single integrated workflow. Barcode scanning replaced manual entry. Transfer orders are created, dispatched, and confirmed automatically, with safeguards filtering blocked bins and materials
before an AGV ever moves. Coordinators watch every delivery and transfer order live, each with its assigned AGV and execution status.

Technologies

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