As a world-leading industrial gas company in operation for over 80 years, Air Products serves energy, environment and emerging markets and provides essential industrial gasses, related equipment and expertise to their customers. They develop, engineer, build, own and operate some of the world's largest industrial gas projects, including carbon capture projects and world-scale low- and zero-carbon hydrogen projects supporting global transportation and the energy transition. To help guarantee safety and sustainability, they collaborated with Movanis to find a tailor-made solution.
At Air Products, safety is a top priority: it’s an integral part of their culture as they push toward their goal of being the safest industrial gases company in the world. Their Packaged Gasses Depots are both inside and outside operated facilities.
Air Products chose to deploy Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) to improve the safety of transport. AGV have a number of benefits, starting with safety. They quickly recognized the potential to reduce these incidents by deploying AGV, which they consider the most flexible solution when looking at the automation of pallet movements. AGV can easily be deployed at existing sites without the necessity for major changes.
Air Products mainly wanted to automate one of the simplest tasks in their PG activities: the movements of pallets filled with cylinders. That’s where Movanis’ innovative way of collaborating came in. The types of movements covered by the AGV were determined completely by Air Products’ own internal assessment. This helped them ensure a balance between avoiding too much complexity and still saturating the AGV.
Air Products’ business case is driven by both safety and productivity gains, but there is also a strategic component. Investing in automation is preparing the company for the future, part of their higher purpose to improve sustainability among their clients, their businesses and their facilities. As the AGV are essentially electric forklift trucks, they open the potential of having Air Products’ pallet movements be partially or fully powered by renewable energy. This is already the case at the site where they have AGV deployed in the Netherlands.
A few factors pushed Air Products towards Movanis, but the main draw was our entrepreneurship. The company was looking for a specific solution, tailored to their needs: outdoor AGV that could be trusted with the transport of precarious gas cylinders. Which is quite the challenge since the AGV would mainly be operating outside, in all possible weather conditions. Movanis was immediately willing to do a pilot project with them to test this scenario. This gave Air Products the confidence in how we handle challenges and business all around.
Movanis had to make the AGV robust enough to sustain various weather influences. The feedback Air Products received from the pilot project helped them refine and perfect the development of the AGV to perfectly answer their needs. Because Movanis was able to adapt the AGV and their software in-house, Air Products had the opportunity to make all necessary adjustments quickly. This allowed for high adaptability and quick solutions to any challenges encountered during the project. The pilot turned out to be such a successful proof of concept that Air Products integrated the AGV permanently into their operation. The success of this project secured their confidence in Movanis, making us their go-to partner for potential future projects.
Air Products found the Movanis team to be very approachable, never failing to adapt and provide solutions. They were satisfied with the commissioning and general follow-up of the project, and their local team is still working closely with Movanis to continue optimizing the AGV transports. Even though they’re still in the adoption phase, they’re already starting to see the benefits they expected.
Do you want to find out how Movanis can make your life easier and improve safety at your company by automating your logistics? We’re excited to hear your story and find out how we can meet your needs. Book your consultation today: no strings attached!
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