The latest automated deep-freeze high-bay warehouse will go into operation in January 2022: with Cool Port 2 at City Terminal Rotterdam, Kloosterboer will initially serve anchor customer Lamb Weston / Meijer, a manufacturer of frozen potato products. The customer has the logistics service provider handle the export products of its Dutch production sites via the port of Rotterdam. In future, these goods will be delivered to Cool Port 2, loaded onto containers and transported by barge to the container terminals on the Maasvlakte.

Planning and automation from a single source
The six-aisle, fully automated deep-freeze high-bay warehouse is 69 meters long, 139 meters wide, 41 meters high and has 60,000 rack spaces. From autumn 2020 to summer 2021, 4,100 tons of steel were installed in the compact warehouse in a self-supporting silo design. From June, intralogistics specialist Westfalia, which planned the warehouse, will be installing its intralogistics technology to automate the daily throughput of thousands of pallets. It is producing and installing a total of six of its storage and retrieval machines and conveyor technology, including PLC control. Westfalia manufactures the stacker cranes and conveyor units at its headquarters in Borgholzhausen, East Westphalia, plans and programs the control system and thus keeps the supply chains short and stable.

"We are implementing a tailor-made, efficient and highly available logistics system on just under one hectare in the port of Rotterdam. Pallets are delivered by self-unloading or conventional trucks and are automatically transported from the dispatch hall to the deep-freeze high-bay warehouse via roller conveyors, turntables and airlocks," explains John van Dijk, the project manager responsible at Westfalia. Sensors check the contours of the loaded Euro and industrial pallets and sort out faulty, damaged load carriers prematurely. This maximizes the reliability of the system.

Gentle throughput of hundreds of pallets per hour
In the high-performance deep-freeze warehouse, the SRMs take over and store and retrieve hundreds of heavily loaded pallets every hour at temperatures as low as -25° C. The intralogistics general contractor has designed its patented Satellite load handling device specifically for multi-deep storage and developed it further over decades. Each SRM stores pallets on both sides in multi-deep rows. These channels can be connected for servicing.

Euro and industrial pallets usually bend when heavily loaded, and the quality can vary greatly. The Satellite load handling attachment accesses profiles that support and protect the pallets. This design significantly increases their service life and prevents load carriers from bending, jamming and blocking the system. The sequencing buffer supports the immense throughput.

This article appeared in issue 11/2021 of materialfluss.