Logistics Software Projects                                                                                           < Home

In Ermelo, the Netherlands, Proti-Farm breeds mealworms for production of ingredients for  food and pharmaceutical industries.    

LEK is a pharmaceutical company and belongs to the Novartis group. The warehouse in Ljubljana with the new-developed Material Flow System is used for supply of the production as well as for distribution of finished goods. 

LEK is a pharmaceutical company and belongs to the Novartis group. The warehouse in Strykow with the new-developed Material Flow System is used for supply of the production as well as for distribution of finished goods. 

Tnuva is the largest producer of diary products in Israel. For the warehouse and distribution center of the diary in in Afula, the entire warehouse management software was exchanged in context of a retrofit project. The WMS coordinates two higbay warehouses for raw material and finished goods, the cooling tunnel and the monorail system connecting all areas.

The Feneberg Lebensmittel GmbH operates supermarkets und shopping centers in southern Bavaria. For it's own butchery at the location of Kempten, a new logistics facility with a  multishuttle storage is built, which contains about 15000 bins for double-deep standard totes. The facility serves for supply of the production, intermediate storage of  produced goods, and for processing of customer orders. Customer totes with meat and convenience products are delivered to about 80 stores. The picking is mainly performed  at three automated weighing and labelling machines. Alternatively,  prepared goods may be picked manually at four pickstations along a conveyor circle. All picks are guided by pick-to-light devices. Ready-picked totes are intermediately stored and later retrieved on demand and stacked on roll ontainers for shipping to the stores. Highlight of the IT solution  are the sequenced transport of article totes to the pick workstations and the fully integrated control of the labelling machines. 

The Mammut Sports Group AG is a Swiss supplier of equipment for mountaineers and  for outdoor activities. In Wolfertschwenden, a new storage facility is built, from where shipments are sent to customers in whole Europe. The three-aisle multishuttle storage is the core of the facility. It serves six workstations for picking. A preplanned sequence of articles is guaranteed by using a sequencer inbeetween storage and workstations. The multishuttle storage is replenished from a 6-aisle miniload system with  double-deep bins. For storage and  transport, cartons of various sizes are used. Ready-Picked cartons are onveyed  from the pick workstations to pack workstations, where they are finished for shipping.

The Bell company is a leading producer of meat in Switzerland. At the location Zell, where Bell produces poultry products, a new multishuttle storage system is built and connected with the existing storage of finished goods. The multishuttle system serves as sortation buffer for the totes, which are delivered to the numerous stores of the Coop supermarket chain. For the existing raw-material  and ready-goods storages, the  IT landscape with warehouse management and material flow software is entirely renewed in order to remove performance bottlenecks. The particular feature of the project is the introduction of new software without having the chance to run larger real test runs at the existing facility. Therefore all processes are checked instead in numerous test runs using a detailled emulation model . 

The Bischofszell Food Ltd., a company of the Migros group, produces at the plant in Bischofszell jams, fruit juices,  potato products  and convenience products. The new Convenience-Gate is built as distribution center for the daily delivery  to  the Migros cooperatives. Goods from production or from external suppliers are temporarily stored in a miniload storage. In order to optimize the utilization of the storage capacity, the used standard totes are automatically stacked before storage. From the miniload,  the picking storage gets supplied, which is a high-dynamic multishuttle system with 6 aisles,  60 shuttle vehicles and one elevator at each aisle head. The logistic system is  focussed on the optimization  of the transports to the cooperatives. Starting with an exact tote planning, the warehouse management system (WMS) builds the daily tours with respect to a route plan. From the  multishuttle storage the totes with source articles are moved in preplanned sequence  to 6 picking workstations. Picking and filling of the customer totes are guided by the WMS  using graphic presentations of the pack schemes.  When retrieved, the ready picked totes are automatically labeled  and  - also in exactly predefined sequence -  stacked on pallets.. The ready pallets can be stacked  automatically too, if their heights allow for it.

A new distribution center for deep frozen meat and fish products and other chilled goods is built in Moscow. The backbone of the facility is an automatic high-bay storage with 10 aisles and 16000 bins for pallets. Two levels of the rack structure contain a fully  integrated picking zone.  The stacker cranes supply the 1320 picking locations, from which single cartons are picked and dropped  onto a conveyor belt, which leads to a sorter outside the high-bay storage. Sorted by customer, the cartons are dropped to 34 chutes. The pickers are guided by a pick-to-light system. 

In Saarwellingen, the provider of logistic services operates a distribution center for his client  INA, a supplier of the automotive industry. The products are stored  in an automatic high-bay storage for euro- and industry pallets as well as in a miniload storage for different kinds of totes.  Altogether, there are 250.000 bins available,  which can be accessed by the warehouse management system. Both automatic storage areas are connected to in- and output lanes and to pick workstations  by  an automatic electrical monorail system.

With two identical fully automated picking systems at locations in Jutland and Sealand, fresh ground was broken. At each facility, four palletizing robots build every day more than 2000 mixed pallets for the customers of the Danish brewery, all pallets optimally preplanned.  Each of the robots is supplied with the needed crates and cartons in well defined sequence using three lines of belt conveyors. At the end of these conveyors, the crates and cartons are stacked and prepared for palletizing. The single items are either picked from full pallets and dropped on the belts using depalletizing robots or are retrieved from a connected automatic miniload storage with fives stacker cranes. The miniload is replenished from full pallets, the crates of which are unscrambled by a depalletizer for whole layers. Having loaded with stacks of cartons and crates, the mixed pallets can also be accomplished with kegs by an additional robot.

Infracor operates the chemical service center in Marl and provides infra structure and services for the companies located in that area. In the new logistic center, chemical products are stored, prepared for distribution and shipped by order of various clients.  The main components of the logistic center are an automatic high-bay storage with 9 aisles and 22.000 bins, the manually operated storage for dangerous products, a tank-filling device and picking and staging workstations on two conveying levels. An automatic electrical monorail connects as backbone the areas of the logistic center. Wrappers and stretchers, integrated into the conveyor lanes provide for an almost fully automated process chain in order processing. Highly sophisticated  is the use of carrier pallets, which stay continuously in the conveyor system and are automatically married with different types of chemical  pallets in the good-in area to build sandwich pallets. Supply and disposal of carrier pallets are organized by an internal replenishment process using  high-bay storage,  transfer vehicles and automatic pallet stacker / destacker devices.

At the location Reinsdorf, Dynamit Nobel Kunststoff GmbH produces with injection molding tools bumpers and other plastic components for the automotive industry. The delivered warehouse management system serves as production buffer for storage of the plastic raw parts until processing and finishing in the paint shop. A large amount of different carrier types for the bumpers must be administrated and optimally distributed to the different bin types of the 2-aisle high-bay storage having 1000 storage locations. Most sophisticated in this project is the continuous supply of raw material for the paint shop just in time.

Dansk Supermarked

Distribution Center 
Aarhus

2001 - 2002

Dansk Supermarked operates a couple of retail chains -  among others Netto, Bilka and Føtex  - with 700 stores and markets in Denmark and adjacent countries. Deliveries from whole Europe arrive at the distribution center in Arhus, which are shared to the stores following a 24 h rhythm. A 10-aisle automatic high-bay storage with 10.200 bins for pallets and an automatic miniload system with 9.900 places for totes are the main parts of the facility. From these storage areas a tilt-tray sorter is supplied, which distributes the goods to 100 chutes, each of which uniquely assigned to one of  Dansk Supermarked's stores. An easy-to-use forklift system with radio frequency terminals for transport and picking tasks in manual areas accomplishes the system under control of the warehouse management system.

Malaysia Airlines

Advanced Cargo Center
Sepang

1996 - 2000

Together with the new airport of Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), in1998 a new cargo center started operation in Sepang. The name Advanced Cargo Center of this central hub of Malaysia's import and export is program. For the first time,  a warehouse management system plans and carries out all cargo processes in fully automated mode. Five elevating transfer vehicles operate in the container storage area with space for 1000 unit load devices. Each of this cranes is able to move and elevate load weights up to 7000 kg. A separated chilled area for 12 containers as well as a bulk storage with 6500 bins are also operated automatically. Container and air freight pallets are transported from storage to 80 workstations, where build up and break down take place. All pick operations are booked online using radio frequency devices. Therefore, the warehouse management system is always informed about the location of all airway bills, which are handled by Malaysia Airlines via the airport KLIA. An automatic electrical monorail system, which traverses as a backbone the 300 m building, transports the not consolidated freight between workstations and bulk storage.   

Hartwall

Distribution Center
Lahti

1996 -

In Lahti, Finland's leading company for production of beverages with50% market share for beer and soft drinks built a distribution center with 23.000 pallet places in the high-bay storage. An automated electrical monorail is used for storage and retrieval and also for the replenishment of four different robot pick systems and the manual picking area. Forklifts guided by radio frequency terminals perform transports and the manual picking tasks. The production part of the facility, consisting of several  filling lines, is connected to the logistic area by automatic guided vehicles.

Bundesdruckerei

Strong Room
Berlin

1995

The "most valuable" automatic high-bay storage was realized for the Bundesdruckerei in Berlin. Two stacker cranes on a common rail operate inside  a hermetically closed strong room. The production storage keeps raw material and resources for the production of bank notes and last not least for secure storage of the finished money ready for distribution. The warehouse management system is connected to the ERP system, which transmits the orders for retrieval of raw material or half done products to the print shop. The strong room releases the requested pallets only upon personal identification via a lock gate.

Power Logistics

Logistics Center
Fallingbostel

1993 - 1995

Power Logistics operates on behalf of  Kraft Jacobs Suchard the Logistics Center Fallingbostel. Due to networking and integration of several IT systems a unique degree of preplanning and efficient organization of all logistic processes was reached  including order planning, pallet planning, tour planning, load planning, order selection, picking and staging. The heart of the facility is the automatic high-bay storage with 14 stacker cranes and 55.000 bins for pallets. The high bay is divided into two different climate zones. Goods to store originate either from Kraft's  neighbored production plant, which is connected by an automatic electrical monorail system or from other plants delivered by truck. From the high-bay storage eight additional fully automated storage modules are replenished in waves. In the bottom level of  these modules article source pallets are provided for picking.Ppaperless picking is done by forklifts guided with radio-frequency terminals. Full and mixed pallets are staged for loading to trucks on preplanned places. 

Langnese-Iglo

Storage for Deep Frozen Food  
Heppenheim   Reken   Wunstorf

1991 -1992

Simultaneously at three locations,  facilities were built for the storage of deep frozen food by order of Langnese Iglo. Altogether there is space for 140.000 pallets from the production of ice cream, ready made meals and vegetables. Considering the temperature of -28°C, there are hard requirements for the automated conveyor technique. Worthy of remark are the portal robots equipped with Hoover devices, which were constructed particular for this project and which are used for picking of whole layers of articles with quite different weights and measures. The robots were also a challenge for the warehouse management, because only the development of tricky algorithms could guarantee their optimized replenishment with pallets. 

Texlog

Textile Finishing and Distribution Center Duisburg

1990 - 1991

At the port of Duisburg the center was built with 18.000 places for pallets and space for 730.000 pieces of clothes. The high-bay rack divided into 5 aisles is used for storage of any logistic goods and textiles on hangers. For the first time, conveyor and storage technique for pallets are combined with a conveyor system for hanging clothes. In the good-in area, barcodes are attached to the textiles. Then the items are transported on hangers, automatically sorted by the preplanned date of delivery and then stored on special hanger pallets inside the high-bay. Just in time for the date of delivery, the pallets are selected for orders and retrieved. The single items are isolated again and put onto the conveyor system for hangers. In two sortation runs, the textiles are automatically sorted by customer. Besides the order processing, the facility serves for finishing tasks like pressing and labeling, where the supply and restorage is also done via the automatic conveyor system.

Luftfracht-Umschlag-
Gesellschaft

Customs Import Storage
Frankfurt

1989 - 1990

By order of the  Luftfracht-Umschlag-Gesellschaft an automatic storage for customs import goods was erected at the area of the airport Frankfurt. The high-bay storage is divided into two different areas for receiving euro and large pallets. The warehouse management system keeps information on airway bills,  which are temporarily stored in the facility until customs formalities are completed and the receiver of the imported goods fetch their deliveries.

Petri

Production Storage
Albertshausen

1988 - 1989

Close to Bad Kissingen, Petri produces plastic parts using the injection molding technique. Most important customer is the automotive industry. Petri is specialist for the manufacture of steering wheels. In the high-bay storage raw material and half-done products are stored, until they are retrieved just in time to one of the production machines using an automatic electrical monorail system.