Material flow solutions network production and distribution

The individual elements of these value chains are equipped with more and more intelligence. This enables highly efficient networking of all the factors involved. The material flow specialist viastore has undergone the transformation from a machining company to a digital technology company itself and has evolved from a metalworking business to a mechanical and plant engineering company to a system integrator and software house. This enables its customers to increase their added value through an effective and integrated flow of goods in logistics and production. The experts achieve this by increasing the availability, efficiency and performance of existing storage and conveyor systems or by simplifying complex tasks with new, intuitive systems. viastore has cultivated its industrial roots in order to increase the efficiency of manufacturing companies. This includes, for example, reducing excessively high circulating and warehouse stocks due to non-transparent and inconsistent processes in logistics and production. This ties up capital, incurs costs and limits the scalability of the business model. The fact that customers need their spare parts worldwide, quickly and at defined times also places high demands on intralogistics. Another challenge is the trend towards individualization and the resulting production of small batch sizes, which is only economical if the processes are consistently networked and easy to handle.

Needs-based solutions for manufacturing companies

viastore enables industrial companies to organize all information and goods flows holistically along the value chain in order to achieve competitive advantages. The system and software company considers and designs the material flow end-to-end - from goods receipt to production and assembly through to dispatch. This results in greater flexibility in logistics and production - with reduced inventories and errors at the same time. To achieve this, the experts implement individual solutions tailored to the customer's needs: From raw materials to delivery, from semi-finished products to assembly supply, from milk run to spare parts distribution. With its viadat software, viastore offers a proven and future-proof standard solution for managing and controlling the entire material flow in warehouses and production. It is flexible, intuitive, easy to configure and, with KPI tools, has extensive options for data evaluation and analysis and therefore for process improvement. In addition, viastore has extended the WMS to processes in production in order to achieve even greater networking and transparency along the entire value chain. Here, the company works closely with MES specialists.

About viastore

The viastore Group is a leading international provider of intralogistics systems, intralogistics software and supporting services. As a system integrator, viastore Systems offers two absolute top solutions from a single source: in cooperation with prismat, the general contractor focuses on premium logistics solutions in the SAP environment. Together with viastore Software, the Industry 4.0 expert also offers intralogistics systems that are controlled and managed by the viadat warehouse management system. This combination of process expertise, state-of-the-art system technology and the ability to choose between two leading software solutions for networked and automated material flows in logistics and industrial production from a single source is unique on the market. viastore Software's standard WMS viadat is a software package that manages and controls small warehouses with low throughput just as reliably as distribution centers and high-performance logistics systems with several hundred thousand order lines per day. viadat is intuitive to use, ergonomic and multi-warehouse capable. It can be implemented particularly quickly through configuration, is fully scalable in terms of function and performance and impresses with more than 2,500 logistics functions as standard. The WMS thus offers an end-to-end solution for networked material flows along the value chain. The viastore Group employs 520 people worldwide and generates a turnover of 130 million euros.

Innovations around Industry 4.0

viastore uses numerous Industry 4.0 technologies to achieve a high level of benefit for its customers. For example, the intralogistics professional relies on virtual reality technologies when planning complex systems. These provide significant support in the decision-making process and enable a needs-based design. For example, the experts can use it to realistically plan and design a logistics center with a production connection. They can flexibly adapt the technical and spatial requirements as well as the customer's wishes. In this way, users can already see what the warehouse will look like later during the development phase. They can also check processes such as order picking in advance for their ergonomics, practicality and cost-effectiveness.

Virtual commissioning enables highly networked material flow systems to be digitally tested, implemented and commissioned in advance.

Using virtual commissioning, viastore tests and implements highly networked material flow systems digitally in advance. The experts depict all components in a digital model before real implementation and simulate their functionality. This shortens the time on site, increases quality and efficiency and reduces risks for customers. For this, viastore was recently named one of the "100 Places for Industry 4.0" by the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The intralogistics expert also presented the autonomous storage and picking robot viarobot, which allows users to automate manual warehouses quickly and easily via plug & play - without having to replace the infrastructure. Operators simply continue to use existing shelving racks. viarobot is highly flexible and can be used universally, as it adapts to any building structure. The robot works without interruption 24 hours a day, 365 days a year - even in dark and unheated rooms. Thanks to the software, it is quickly ready for operation and scalable: if conditions in the warehouse change, operators can simply integrate additional devices and set up more racks. This enables companies to react quickly and with manageable effort to fluctuations in demand. They also benefit from these advantages when relocating a warehouse.

viastore also enables its customers to achieve high availability through predictive maintenance, prospective analyses and integrated system monitoring. To this end, the specialists have developed tools with which the data can then be evaluated and used for predictive maintenance and the continuous improvement of system performance. This reduces downtimes, increases operational reliability and saves costs.

www.viastore.de