Flexcon

In Jablonné nad Orlicí, Czechia, Flexcon has turned a multi-floor, decentralized production footprint into an orchestrated material flow, with robots and people working side by side.

Family-owned Flexcon produces cable harnesses and electromechanical assemblies for customers across Europe in the electrical engineering, white goods, and textile machinery sectors. Until recently, material flow across the production areas was spread across several floors with decentralized storage, which slowed picking, increased physical strain, and created room for errors. The goal was clear: speed up and improve production line feeding and prepare for future growth without simply adding headcount.

Manufacturers across Europe are racing to stabilize intralogistics as product variety grows and labor markets tighten. The winning playbook pairs AMRs (autonomous mobile robots) with other automation products like automatic vertical or horizontal lift modules and ERP orchestration to compress walk time, remove manual data entry, and enable easy retrieval of necessary items. Flexcon leaned into that trend.

To replace a decentralized, manual, and error-prone material flow, Flexcon, together with our partner DREAMland, implemented a fleet of MiR250 autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) tightly integrated with Modula vertical lift modules (VLMs) and the existing software stack. Multiple MiR250s are deployed, fitted with task-specific top modules: custom top modules engineered for Flexcon to execute hands-free transfers to and from Modula and the production lines, and Nord Modules top modules for heavier, larger payloads. The Modula system consists of five towers with 392 trays; two towers are special versions with customized trays for 600×400 KLT boxes, enabling fully autonomous interaction with MiR robots. The system stores roughly 1,260 plastic boxes, all tracked via QR codes to eliminate manual data entry.

On the software side, Flexcon’s ERP system issues commands to a higher-level system that generates transport missions in MiR Fleet and synchronizes them with Modula WMS. As MiR250s approach Modula, they automatically call the correct tray. On arrival, the tray is staged, and once the task is complete, the robot returns the tray to storage. The big advantage of the process is that it does not require any human intervention.

Flexcon now consistently processes around 1,000 items per shift while reducing the number of personnel tied to picking and in-process handling. Walk time and manual touches have been replaced with scanning and supervision. On top of that, the trays are ready when MiR AMRs arrive, removing dwell and wait. Through combination of all of these systems as well as Put-to-Light, the error rate dropped to below 0.5 percent. The result is a faster intralogistics rhythm that supports Flexcon’s deliveries across the electrical engineering, white goods, and textile machinery sectors in Europe.

Looking ahead, Flexcon plans to implement an Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) layer that will automatically transmit driver messages into production and coordinate with the MiR Fleet. This will further shorten order-to-station latency, expand autonomous exception handling, and reduce remaining manual interventions.