未来行业的愿景：SmartReturn 如何从一家小型托盘公司转变为北欧逆向物流的主要领导者
未来行业的愿景：SmartReturn 如何从一家小型托盘公司转变为北欧逆向物流的主要领导者
SmartReturn: Norwegian pallet company invests in automated inspection and visions systems to improve its credibility. Company plans to launch plastic pool in the region and continues to work with the grocery sector’s pallet program.
SmartReturn：挪威托盘公司投资于自动化检测和视觉系统以提高其可信度。公司计划在该地区推出塑料池，并继续与杂货行业的托盘计划合作。
By Rick LeBlanc
作者：Rick LeBlanc
Date Posted: 6/2/2021
发布日期：2021 年 6 月 2 日
Pallet Company Invests in Automated Inspection
Company plans to launch plastic pool in the region and continues to work with the grocery sector’s pallet program.
Pallet Company 投资于自动化检测
公司计划在该地区推出塑料池，并继续与杂货行业的托盘计划合作。
SmartReturn (SmartRetur in Nowegian) is a company that believes in living up to its name. This February, it placed an order for its first Pallet Inspector automated vision inspection system with plans to install more at other facilities in Sweden and Denmark in the future.
SmartReturn（挪威语中的SmartRetur）是一家信奉名不虚传的公司。今年 2 月，它订购了第一台 Pallet Inspector 自动视觉检测系统，并计划未来在瑞典和丹麦的其他工厂安装更多。
The company likes to bet on new technology, but as with other purchases such as its Pallet Sorting Systems automated sort and repair lines, SmartReturn takes a measured approach rolling out after testing at one location.
该公司喜欢押注新技术，但与其他采购（如托盘分拣系统自动分拣和维修线）一样，SmartReturn 在一个地点进行测试后采取了一种谨慎的方法。
SmartReturn has never shied away from bold moves. Over the years, the company has progressed from a small pallet supplier to its current position as a leading Nordic reverse logistics provider for pallets and supply chain packaging. The vision system is manufactured by Ivisys Vision Systems, a Swedish supplier and “Top 10” ranked European vision system provider to various industries.
SmartReturn 从不回避大胆的举措。多年来，该公司已从一家小型托盘供应商发展成为目前领先的北欧托盘和供应链包装逆向物流供应商。该视觉系统由瑞典供应商 Ivisys Vision Systems 制造，并为各个行业排名“前 10 名”的欧洲视觉系统供应商。
The purchase of automated vision sorting addresses a long-held desire of the company to take the guesswork and potential for “padded” pallet recovery reporting and other irregularities out of the pallet recycling industry.
自动视觉分类的购买解决了该公司长期以来的一个愿望，即消除托盘回收行业中“填充”托盘回收报告和其他违规行为的猜测和潜力。
Søren Eriksen, CEO of SmartReturn, commented, “Pallets are like money. They are currency. Would you leave counting your money up to one of your trading partner’s employees?” Eriksen says his goal is to take the potential for human discrepancies out of the equation.
SmartReturn 的首席执行官 Søren Eriksen 评论道：“托盘就像钱。它们是货币。你愿意让你的贸易伙伴的一名员工数钱吗？” 埃里克森说，他的目标是将人类差异的可能性排除在外。
Making the Pallet Business More Trustable
让托盘业务更值得信赖
Eriksen, now over 10 years in the pallet business, previously worked as a sales executive in the Norwegian television industry. At that time, a friend asked him to help run the friend’s small pallet business, and he was quickly bitten by the pallet bug. And as luck would have it, the pallet industry resonated with some advice he had previously received from a television celebrity. He told Eriksen that if he ever came across a high-volume business that was flying under the radar, he should sink his teeth into it. With these words still in his head, Eriksen agreed to help his friend in return for shares in the company.
Eriksen 现在从事托盘业务已超过 10 年，之前曾在挪威电视行业担任销售主管。当时，朋友请他帮忙打理朋友的小托盘生意，他很快就被托盘虫咬了。幸运的是，托盘行业对他之前从一位电视名人那里得到的一些建议产生了共鸣。他告诉埃里克森，如果他遇到了一项在雷达下飞速发展的大批量业务，他应该全力以赴。带着这些话，埃里克森同意帮助他的朋友以换取公司的股份。
Eriksen, now over 10 years in the pallet business, previously worked as a sales executive in the Norwegian television industry. At that time, a friend asked him to help run the friend’s small pallet business, and he was quickly bitten by the pallet bug. And as luck would have it, the pallet industry resonated with some advice he had previously received from a television celebrity. He told Eriksen that if he ever came across a high-volume business that was flying under the radar, he should sink his teeth into it. With these words still in his head, Eriksen agreed to help his friend in return for shares in the company.
埃里克森最初对他在挪威托盘行业发现的缺乏复杂性感到震惊。“这个行业非常不成熟，”他回忆道。“没有什么技术，也没有对未来的投资。” 埃里克森开始做出改变，短期内，公司的盈利能力一落千丈。“我们必须先清理自己的房子，”他解释说。埃里克森最终买下了前任老板。
Through his television connections to major food and beverage brands, Eriksen began to make inquiries about their experiences with pallets and pallet providers. He heard that there were considerable frustrations regarding quality and loss in the Norwegian marketplace. While millions of pallets were being imported annually under load, grocery sector companies were losing 30% of their pallets each year. There were reports of some unscrupulous truck drivers pocketing $2,000 per week by illicitly selling pallets. Poor control, theft and black-market activities made pallet management a headache.
通过与主要食品和饮料品牌的电视联系，埃里克森开始询问他们与托盘和托盘供应商的经验。他听说挪威市场上的质量和损失令人沮丧。虽然每年有数百万个托盘在装载下进口，但杂货行业公司每年损失 30% 的托盘。有报道称，一些不道德的卡车司机通过非法销售托盘每周赚取 2,000 美元。控制不善、盗窃和黑市活动使托盘管理成为头疼的问题。
Collaboration Critical to Growth
合作对增长至关重要
In response to such concerns, the Norwegian grocery industry in 2006 launched a cooperative industry rental pool – Norsk Lastbærer Pool AS (NLP). It began with wooden pallets and in 2010, it introduced plastic pallets from Shuert Technologies, a Michigan-based plastic pallet manufacturer. SmartReturn, by that time establishing itself as a forward-thinking pallet company, collaborated with NLP as its reverse logistics provider. Norway is a very long and sparsely populated country. Grocery industry stakeholders recognized that for a reverse logistics program to be viable, it would be necessary to collaborate. They worked together to avoid competing trucks running partially empty relocating NLP pallets, other pallets and containers used by the sector.
针对此类担忧，挪威杂货行业于 2006 年推出了合作行业租赁池——Norsk Lastbærer Pool AS (NLP)。它从木制托盘开始，并于 2010 年推出了来自密歇根州塑料托盘制造商 Shuert Technologies 的塑料托盘。到那时，SmartReturn 已将自己确立为一家具有前瞻性的托盘公司，并与作为其逆向物流供应商的 NLP 合作。挪威是一个地广人稀的国家。杂货行业的利益相关者认识到，要使逆向物流计划可行，就必须进行合作。他们共同努力避免竞争。卡车运行部分空的地方重新安置NLP 托盘、该行业使用的其他托盘和容器。
Today, SmartReturn shares its main warehouse with NLP near Oslo, as well as operating major facilities in Sweden and Denmark with a total of 13 locations across the three countries. The company employs 250 people and handles the return of rental pallets and proprietary equipment. It also manages pallet banking services and the purchase, repair and sale of used pallets. In its effort to build additional transparency and trust in the marketplace, SmartReturn was an early adopter of digital asset management software to a market that previously relied on handwritten receipts and Excel spreadsheets. The company processes over 10 million pallets annually and repairs in excess of three million units.
如今，SmartReturn 与Oslo附近的 NLP 共享其主要仓库，并在瑞典和丹麦经营主要设施，在这三个国家共设有 13 个地点。该公司拥有 250 名员工，负责处理租赁托盘和专有设备的归还事宜。它还管理托盘银行服务以及旧托盘的购买、维修和销售。为了在市场中建立额外的透明度和信任度，SmartReturn 是数字资产管理软件的早期采用者，这个市场以前依赖于手写收据和 Excel 电子表格。该公司每年处理超过 1000 万个托盘，维修超过 300 万件。
Automated Sorting Systems and Vision Technology
自动分拣系统和视觉技术
While the company consolidates and sorts retrieved pallets at its smaller sites, repairs are sent to its major hubs. Eriksen is a firm believer in the need for volume in order to drive the cost justification for automation. The company has rolled out Pallet Sorting Systems (PSS) automated sort and repair lines for both Norway and Denmark and has placed an order for another system for its Swedish operation to arrive later this year.
该公司在其较小的站点对回收的托盘进行整合和分类，并将维修发送到其主要中心。Eriksen 坚信需要数量才能推动自动化的成本合理性。该公司已经为挪威和丹麦推出了托盘分拣系统 (PSS) 自动分拣和维修线，并已为其瑞典业务订购了另一套系统，该系统将于今年晚些时候上市。
该公司对其 PSS 分拣和维修线非常满意。第一个于 2017 年在挪威安装，旨在处理标准的 800x1200 欧元和租赁托盘以及 100x1200 尺寸。该系统在堆垛机和检查站点之间设有缓冲区，有助于实现分拣，生产率提高 20%，以及检查位置的旋转工作台和托盘翻转装置。托盘重量单位可识别湿托盘，以便将它们分开进行干燥。该系统包括上/下输送机、八个工作台和八个堆垛机、一个用于推入突出钉子的托盘压力机，以及一个用于处理多余损坏托盘的溢流堆垛机。
The automated sort and repair lines will be modified to allow for the installation of the Pallet Inspector vision systems, each valued at close to $200,000. Once Pallet Inspector is validated in Norway, the company’s intention is to also install them in Denmark and Sweden. IVISYS, the equipment vendor, currently has a unit operating at ICA, a major grocery retailer, for sorting empty pallets, with another unit on order. The throughput at ICA is about 350 pallets per hour, according to IVISYS.
自动分拣和维修线将进行修改，以安装 Pallet Inspector 视觉系统，每个系统的价值接近 200,000 美元。一旦 Pallet Inspector 在挪威获得验证，该公司的意图是也在丹麦和瑞典安装它们。设备供应商 IVISYS 目前在大型杂货零售商 ICA 设有一个部门，用于对空托盘进行分类，另外还有一个部门正在订购。据 IVISYS 称，ICA 的吞吐量约为每小时 350 个托盘。
The Pallet Inspector can rapidly identify protruding nails, missing, damaged or misaligned components, stains and stamps. Cycle time is as low as 7 seconds.
Pallet Inspector 可以快速识别突出的钉子、缺失、损坏或错位的组件、污渍和印记。循环时间低至 7 秒。
Eriksen’s interest in technology, as well as acquisitions of other pallet companies to build the volume necessary to justify its introduction, has required considerable financial investment. In just three years, sales increased from $23 to $58 million, and earnings from $1.7 to $4.1 million. In 2020, the company undertook a transaction with a leading Norwegian investment firm to further increase its access to capital. Martin Andresen, Eriksen’s business partner, sold his 50% share in the company to Norvestor, while Eriksen sold half of his interest, retaining a 25% share in the company and continuing in his role as CEO.
Eriksen 对技术的兴趣，以及收购其他托盘公司以建立必要的数量，以证明其引入的合理性，，需要大量的财务投资。在短短三年内，销售额从 2300万 美元增加到 5800 万美元，收益从 170万 美元增加到 410 万美元。2020 年，该公司与一家领先的挪威投资公司进行了交易，以进一步增加其获得资本的机会。Eriksen 的商业伙伴 Martin Andresen 将其 50% 的公司股份出售给 Norvestor，而 Eriksen 则出售了一半的股份，保留了公司 25% 的股份并继续担任 CEO。
“We have followed the company since before Søren Eriksen and Martin Andresen bought it,” a Norvestor partner told the Norwegian press at the time of the transaction. “We liked the niche that is about return, logistics, reuse and the environment. It is an unstructured industry where there is a lot to do. Now they have reached a size and digitization that suits us, and we have a setup to expand further,” he said, explaining that they are looking to more than double the company’s sales in the next five years.
“早在 Søren Eriksen 和 Martin Andresen 收购这家公司之前，我们就一直关注这家公司，” Norvestor 的一位合伙人在交易时告诉挪威媒体。“我们喜欢与退货、物流、再利用和环境有关的利基市场。这是一个非结构化的行业，有很多事情要做。现在他们已经达到了适合我们的规模和数字化水平，我们有进一步扩张的准备，”他说，并解释说他们希望在未来五年内将公司的销售额增加一倍以上。
Plastic Pallet Pooling and Construction Sector Pallet Retrieval
塑料托盘汇集和建筑行业托盘检索
The next bold step in SmartReturn’s journey will be the introduction of a plastic pallet pool in Denmark, where the company has been in serious conversation with industry leaders. “Basically, we are now at a point where we are going in two directions,” Eriksen stated. “One is the normal pallet business, and the other we are entering the plastic pallet business in Denmark now, and hopefully Finland in the near future.” The company, already having pallet operations in Denmark, also has a Danish reusable crate washing facility where it processes 80 million crates annually for a major European crate pooling provider.
SmartReturn 旅程的下一个大胆步骤将是在丹麦引入塑料托盘池，该公司一直在与行业领导者进行认真的对话。“基本上，我们现在正朝着两个方向前进，”埃里克森说。“一个是普通的托盘业务，另一个我们现在正在进入丹麦的塑料托盘业务，希望在不久的将来进入芬兰。” 该公司已经在丹麦开展托盘业务，还拥有丹麦可重复使用的板条箱清洗设施，每年为欧洲一家主要的板条箱供应商处理 8000 万条板条箱。
Given his role with plastic grocery pallet pools already established in Norway by NLP and in Sweden by SRS, Eriksen is highly familiar with plastic rental pallet logistics. That experience has been fortified by the addition of Tom Romanich, SmartReturn’s chief technology officer, who previously played a key role at NLP. Eriksen sees Denmark as a logical expansion of the same pallet model manufactured by Shuert, enabling pallet flows between the three countries. With plastic pallet prices in the $50 to $60 range, the introduction of the pool will require a hefty investment.
鉴于他在 NLP 已在挪威建立的塑料杂货托盘池和 SRS 在瑞典建立的塑料杂货托盘池中的角色，Eriksen 非常熟悉塑料租赁托盘物流。SmartReturn 的首席技术官 Tom Romanich 的加入进一步加强了这种经验，他之前在 NLP 中发挥了关键作用。Eriksen 将丹麦视为 Shuert 制造的同一托盘模型的逻辑扩展，从而实现了三个国家之间的托盘流动。由于塑料托盘的价格在 50 美元到 60 美元之间，因此引入游泳池需要大量投资。
While he believes that plastic pallets are a good fit for a domestic grocery system in Nordic countries, he does not foresee wood pallets being displaced anytime soon for imported goods.
虽然他认为塑料托盘非常适合北欧国家的国内杂货系统，但他预计木托盘不会很快被进口商品取代。
Aside from its focus on the grocery industry, SmartReturn has also expanded into the construction sector in Norway. It is working with a leading construction company to retrieve empty pallets for return to building products suppliers – pallets that were previously considered single-trip only. Another success has been the recovery of 45x45" brick pallets, a size not popular in Norway. The company accumulates full loads and returns them to the brick producer in the Netherlands, a cost-effective and environmentally superior solution to a single-use system.
除了专注于杂货行业，SmartReturn 还扩展到挪威的建筑行业。它正在与一家领先的建筑公司合作，取回空托盘以返回给建筑产品供应商——这些托盘以前被认为是单程的。另一个成功是回收 45x45" 英寸砖托盘，这种尺寸在挪威不受欢迎。该公司累积满载并将它们返回给荷兰的砖生产商，这是一次性系统的具有成本效益和环保优势的解决方案。
“With our environmental focus, it was unsustainable that such large amounts of wood went to incineration; 29% of all our waste is from packaging,” stated Morten Trosterud, logistics manager at JM Norway. “It is therefore gratifying that together with SmartReturn we have found a recycling solution for all wood on the construction sites.”
“以我们对环境的关注，如此大量的木材被焚烧是不可持续的；我们所有废物的 29% 来自包装，”JM 挪威的物流经理 Morten Trosterud 说。“因此，令人欣慰的是，我们与 SmartReturn 一起为建筑工地的所有木材找到了一种回收解决方案。”
Eriksen’s goal is to fully automate as many processes as possible and make their businesses fully trustable. It is a message that resonates with grocery industry executives. “Many of those companies are Eriksen 的目标是使尽可能多的流程完全自动化，并使他们的业务完全值得信赖。这是一条与杂货行业高管产生共鸣的信息。“其中许多公司都在投资自动化仓库和其他新技术，”他说。“作为托盘供应商，我们为什么要与众不同？”
他说，最终，他的公司遵循三个简单的规则：“一，生产最好的产品和服务；第二，和最优秀的人一起做，第三，一个好主意在你做得对之前不是好主意。它是如此简单。从现在到明年我们都可以谈，但我们只能通过实际行动来提高，我们正在努力做的事情太多了。”
While acknowledging that not all of SmartReturn’s plans have been successful, Eriksen believes that they collectively have set the company’s path in the right direction to support its ongoing growth.
Eriksen 承认并非 SmartReturn 的所有计划都成功，但他们相信他们共同为公司设定了正确方向，以支持其持续增长。
