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Welcome to the Third Pillar

Ferag Australia is branching to its third pillar of success, offering intelligent intralogistics solutions alongside its global partners. MHD speaks with Philip Batty, Managing Director of the company’s Australian arm to discover more.

We’ve all heard the saying that there are “three pillars of success”. For Ferag Australia, they are transforming this ideology to welcome a new third pillar part of its business offering to the Australian market, through its partnerships with leading global intralogistics solution providers.

Founded in 1957 and headquartered in Switzerland, Ferag is regarded as a world leader in the development, manufacture and marketing of postpress processing systems. 

The printing press began operating a seamless next-day delivery model before e-commerce and logistics giants like Amazon and Catch. “We recognise there were many synergies between the printing industry and the materials handling industry and are excited to expand our opportunities in the intralogistics industry,” Philip Batty, Managing Director of the company’s Australian arm, says.

In the latest e-commerce insights update, Australia Post has revealed that national online purchases in January grew 44 per cent year-on-year, indicating a strong start to online shopping this year.

“Manufacturers, e-commerce giants, courier services and other e-trade businesses are catching up to Australia Post in terms of consumer demand for delivery. With the increase of volume across the entire Australian delivery network, rapid sortation has never been more crucial,” Philip says.

In e-trade businesses, picking is a vital component to harmonising a smooth operation. Modifying operations through automated solutions is a vital priority for players in the supply chain. “When it comes to material handling, automation is normal in the age of Industry 4.0,” Philip says.

As the industry continues to rapidly evolve, Ferag has joined forces with global partners to offer Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) as smarter, more flexible alternatives alongside Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) for a wide variety of material handling activities to help aid Australian companies streamline their growing operations.

The third pillar of business success 

Philip says Ferag has been at the forefront of the graphic and print industry production systems and machinery supply. This includes Ferag Technology and 3rd Party equipment. Ferag is the local company and the integrator.

“That was our first pillar of business, that is rock solid. We then established the second pillar: graphic and print industry consumables products,” Philip says. Ferag Australia is the importer of many consumable products that are manufactured across the globe.

Following a strong leadership in managing these two pillars, Philip says the company has turned a new page and is pleased to welcome the third pillar, the development of the Ferag Australia Intralogistics business (ILO). 

This business area supplies both Ferag Material handling technologies including transportation and sortation systems and 3rd Party systems like goods to person, sortation and automated packaging. “These systems in many cases are developed around AGV and AMR technology,” Philip says.

“The development of the third pillar with the combination of Ferag technology and technology from our third-party suppliers allows Ferag Australia to offer a comprehensive product range to support a wide range of project requirements across many industry sectors.”

Joining forces

Ferag Australia has established relationships with Quicktron, HAI Robotics and Libiao Robotics (A.I.C Systems) to supply their technologies into local intralogistics project opportunities within Australia and New Zealand. The company has also partnered with Panotec, Kalfass and Segbert to further strengthen this third pillar of business.

“This is a really exciting collaboration for the ANZ market that is seeing attraction from some of the major players in the e-commerce sector,” Philip says. “Having access to these very dynamic system suppliers allows Ferag to offer a wide range of solutions to all industry sectors.”

For example, Libiao robotics is an innovative technology company focused on development and innovation of logistic sorting systems. The technology combines parcel sorting robots and robot control systems into one, which has been widely used in global e-commerce, post, retail and apparel industries.

“Australian companies can rely on our partnerships to be hands-on internationally. Our teams are working in China and across the globe to ensure a well-defined and high-quality project outcome is achieved, thus providing a seamless interface when delivering projects in Australia,” Philip says.

“There is now an opportunity to dramatically improve the capacity, flexibility and efficiency of our customers operation through our unique partnerships with leading global system suppliers,” Philip says.

For more information about Ferag Australia, click here.

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