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f+h Intralogistics 1/2015

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f+h Intralogistics 1/2015

WAREHOUSING SSI Schaefer

WAREHOUSING SSI Schaefer brings customized solution to the beverage industry SSI Schaefer realized one of the most modern distribution centers in the European beverage industry for the Norwegian logistic company Vectura AS, which is owned by leading manufacturer and supplier of wine and liquor in Northern Europe, ArcusGruppen AS, both based in Hagan. Intelligent material flows from pallet to single-bottle shipping, the logistics software Wamas perfectly attuned to the complex processes and picking strategies, as well as custom designed plant technology and automation provide a throughput of more than 2,500 picked pallets per day. Vectura planned their new distribution center in Gjelleråsen near Oslo according to the proposition of increasing capacity, efficiency, and service. The order for the turn-key realization of the distribution center adjacent to the manufacturing plants was awarded to SSI Schaefer as general contractor for the intra-logistics. 50 % of the alcohol distribution in Norway is done via the distribution center by now. 8,000 different items, a total of almost 10 million bottles of wine and liquor of known brands are stored there. 220,000 bottles are shipped daily from Gjelleråsen to all of Scandinavia and the Baltics. Such a high throughput is made possible by an intelligent system design and arrangement of material flow. This is likewise true for the interaction of the installed technical components as the layout and the link of the logistics software Wamas by SSI Schaefer to the superimposed SAP system by Vectura. “The challenge for the IT was to group all beverages together to an ABC classification and then sequentially attune the picking processes of whole pallets of boxed items to single bottles,” explains Dr. Jens Derner, director of IT projects at SSI Schaefer. “Hence, Wamas was adjusted in such a way that all picking processes are sequentially controlled among each other as well as in their holistic interaction in order to guarantee utmost efficiency in shipping by an optimal consolidation of orders.” Directly linked to the manufacturing building, the new high-bay warehouse rises more than 30 m high. More than 31,000 locations for Euro pallets are installed in the pallet warehouse with eight aisles. Stocking is done in a mix of single and double deep storage. “This heightens efficiency for accesses and transfers,” says Peter Lambrecht, head of project management at SSI Schaefer. Locations are designed in such a way that there is space for three Euro pallets or two ISO pallets used for overseas shipping. “With labeling as well as with the assignment of storage locations, the warehouse management, and retrieval processes Wamas has to distinguish between the two 30 f+h Intralogistics 1/2015

WAREHOUSING types of pallets in order to control the processes according to the demand,” says Dr. Derner. Two different material flows are to be controlled already for the storing processes. From the bottling plant, automated guided vehicles receive and transport storage pallets from in-house production. Navigated by laser, they transfer the pallets to a monorail system that circulates to all storage and picking areas at first the in-bound passes of the high-bay warehouse. The pallets are received by pallet cranes and gradually stored into the temperature controlled high-bay warehouse with 14° to 17° Celsius. “In doing so Wamas controls the allocation of storage positions according to the demand frequency”, Derner explains. “The less an item is demanded, the sooner it will be stored in the back of the double-deep storage positions or else transferred to one of the other 97 storage positions in the 13 levels high warehouse aisles.” Parallel to that, delivered goods from outside productions are stored. The respective pallets are gathered by way of two in-feed lines. They either lead delivered Euro pallets to a transfer position for monorails after a contour check or – if they need to be packaged – they lead them via a transfer carriage to a robot. It takes off excessive height and creates new, storable pallets (Image 01). Subsequently, the new pallets will automatically be foil wrapped and lead toward the monorail afterwards. It takes the pallets to the high-bay warehouse (Image 02). Delivered industrial pallets are actuated by the in-feed lines at two re-packing places in the goods-in section. There, goods are manually re-packed onto Euro pallets that are also transferred to the monorail after foil wrapping and stored in the high-bay warehouse. For order fulfillment, the respective picking areas for box picking and single-bottle picking are served from the high-bay warehouse. “Replenishing is automatically done – controlled by Wamas,” says Dr. Derner. For this purpose, the area for both order types are subdivided in storage segments for frequently ordered items (AA), fast moving items (A) as well as slow moving items (B/C). For the replenishment of box picking, the monorail first leads the pallets to the areas for AA box picking. There, the pallets are received by two transfer carriages. They serve 120 gravity conveying lanes for three pallets each that are located at the sides of the conveying lines. There is a total of 360 pallet storage locations available for AA box picking. Furthermore, at the end of the conveying line feeding the AA picking stations there are pallet transfer stations. There, forklift trucks take the replenishment of pallets for the A-box picking from the transfer carriages. For storing the pallets for A-box picking, an eight-aisle, static rack storage with 2,900 storage positions was built. “Order picking of frequent ordered boxes is done in both storage areas according to the person- togoods principle from the whole pallet,” explains Bo Mortensen, Sales Manager SSI Schaefer Nordic Region. Supported by a pick-by-voice system, the order boxes are arranged on picking carriages and then palletized. An operating platform was installed for picking the boxed B and C items in the distribution center. There, work stations were created where the pallets advanced by monorail from the high-bay warehouse are presented ergonomically optimized in specially designed transfer locations. The order boxes are picked via display prompt from single storage pallets up to six mixed order pallets. “One pallet can contain orders to up to eight different customers,” says Derner. “This means that the software has to be programmed for continuous process control from the start as picking and compilation of single boxes already has to consid- er delivery routes for the consolidation of the orders in shipping.“ At the end of picking the monorail transports the partial pallets back to the high-bay warehouse. Fork lift trucks finally merge the order boxes picked in the AA, A, and B/C areas in a separate consolidation area where they are temporarily stored. There, the completed pallets for each respective order are delivered directly from the monorail. “All these processes of the replenishment supply can moreover be done directly with the pallets from the goods receiving”, explains Lambrecht. “So the material flows and challenges for the software have been very complex.” A further specialty of the plant is the obligation that Vectura as a provider to hotels and restaurants has also to supply single bottles to remote areas of Norway. “Besides the complex processes for the box and completed pallets picking in the distribution center in Gjelleråsen, a structured and sequenced single bottle picking had to be implemented, too”, says Mortensen. “This segment is also divided into fast moving and B/C-items.” Via a bypass of the monorail, the pallets are moved from the highbay warehouse to a manual work station where items are repacked from boxes into totes of up to 30 bottles. The totes of type LTF6280 are stored by the storage and retrieval machines, the Schaefer Miniload 01 De-palletizing robots take off excessive heights and create new, storable pallets f+h Intralogistics 1/2015 31

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