With more than 90,000 items in the catalog and eShop, Hch. Perschmann offers Europe's largest tool logistics together with the Hoffmann Group. Together, they are now Europe's leading system partner for quality tools in the B2B sector. With a delivery capability of over 99 percent and a delivery accuracy of 99.9 percent within 24 hours throughout Germany and within 48 hours throughout Europe, the company ensures maximum supply reliability and is therefore uniquely positioned in the market. The sales area extends from eastern Lower Saxony, northern Hesse and Saxony-Anhalt to Brandenburg, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Growing variety of articles, new product lines

Due to the large variety of articles and the strong growth in order volume, the company expanded its logistics center with an additional 4,500^m2 hall. The aim was to establish new product lines on the market, for example in the areas of workwear and occupational safety. To this end, the storage capacity for container and pallet goods was increased by around 50 percent. The order quantities that can be processed in the warehouse were also significantly increased as a result of the expansion. The basis for this is comprehensive automation of the intralogistics expansion and an intelligent connection to the existing logistics system. Klinkhammer Intralogistics from Nuremberg was awarded the contract for the planning and implementation of this project during ongoing operations.

Automation for greater efficiency

With a new two-storey shelving system with order picking via pick-by-voice, a new freight and parcel packing area, an automatic order consolidation buffer and a voice-guided, manual pallet warehouse, Klinkhammer not only ensures smooth processes, but also increases the storage capacity and performance of the overall system. The use of pick-by-voice increases productivity and further reduces the error rate. The additional storage capacity gained in the shelving racking system amounts to 8,500 shelves. The automatic order consolidation buffer, which also serves as an empty container buffer, has a storage capacity of around 1,300 containers. The order consolidation buffer, equipped with a walking beam storage and retrieval unit, is used to temporarily store picked orders for dispatch or to consolidate an order from different containers. When all the containers belonging to an order have arrived in the order consolidation buffer, the order is transported to the next available packing station. Other logistics areas at the Braunschweig site - wide and narrow-aisle forklift warehouses and special processing - have also been expanded.

Process same-day orders highly efficiently

"With the warehouse investment, we are not only significantly increasing our productivity once again, but also gaining more space for the constantly growing portfolio of quality tools on offer," explains Michael Uphaus, member of the management team at Perschmann. "This marks another milestone in our service promise. The short overall lead time enables us to process same-day orders highly efficiently." The conversion concept during ongoing operations consisted of closely interlinked construction stages so that day-to-day business was affected as little as possible.

In future, up to 3,500 parcels per day will leave the freight and parcel packing area of the new logistics hall. In addition to the connection to the parcel container, two additional outfeed lines have been provided for the dispatch of parcels using pallets or Post-Corlettes. The Klinkhammer material flow control system ensures that the order picking containers are delivered to the 24 packing stations in the correct sequence and at the right time. The storage areas automated by Klinkhammer are controlled via the Klinkhammer material flow computer, ensuring efficient and coordinated processes in an automated environment. The control station always has its automated system in view via the KlinkVision system visualization. KlinkVision displays the system in dynamic overviews and always shows the user the current status of all system areas - right down to sensor level. This enables rapid alarm diagnosis in the warehouse and minimizes downtimes.

The article appeared in materialfluss SPEKTRUM 2022 (7/22).