We will continue to grow steadily in the coming year," said Viastore CEO Philipp Hahn-Woernle at the digital press event at the end of 2021. This is no coincidence: "We have used the time of pandemic restraint, done our homework and thus laid the foundation for further growth." Among other things, the company has introduced SAP S/4 Hana, established a global project management office and implemented a new, modern organizational structure and way of working in the Viastore software. "Standardized processes and full transparency are the prerequisites for consistently high quality," says the CEO. "We have also continued to consistently align our products and solutions with the requirements of our customers and have thus developed what is probably the best stand-alone standard software for use in intralogistics with the Viadat value chain software, for example." Dr. Harald Göbel, COO Viastore Software, added: "This is characterized by the continuous control and monitoring of all material flows between incoming goods, production, warehouse and outgoing goods and the ease of handling both manual and automated work steps." The Stuttgart-based intralogistics specialists are expanding their digital offering with innovations such as Viadat Vision for the visualization and condition monitoring of intralogistics systems.

"With our storage and retrieval machines, we also continue to provide outstanding quality and a top price-performance ratio for the high-performance material flow and storage of pallets, containers, trays and cartons," says Thomas Hibinger, COO of Viastore Systems. He reports on innovations to increase the performance of storage and retrieval machines, for multi-deep storage and in-house transportation, for example for production supply. "Thanks to improvements, our strong brand and our well-known high level of expertise in intralogistics processes, we have succeeded in acquiring a number of valuable major customers. Together with our important existing customers, these are driving our growth," summarized Philipp Hahn-Woernle.

Focus on the manufacturing industry

Viastore once again completed numerous exciting projects in the manufacturing industry focus sector in 2021. Here, Viastore not only supports its customers with storage and internal transportation tasks, but also with the efficient supply of system solutions and software for production. For example, the system integrator took on the expansion, centralization and automation of intralogistics for a manufacturer of products for process measurement technology. For the in-house transportation of products, Viastore integrated the Soto 2 from Magazino, a robot solution that operates completely autonomously and ensures a reliable assembly supply. Long-standing customer Phoenix Contact, a manufacturer of electronic products, was also able to draw on Viastore's expertise for two projects in Germany: the company restructured production and logistics at its site in Herrenberg. With a new warehouse, tugger trains and automated loading and unloading stations, Phoenix Contact was able to increase its delivery performance and create the basis for easy expansion in the future.

In Blomberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, the company relies on a driverless transport system for production supply - in order to be able to manufacture small batch sizes flexibly and efficiently at short notice. With this solution, Phoenix Contact not only benefits from 85 percent less stock in circulation and more space for additional production systems, but also relieves employees of physically strenuous tasks.

Viastore has also implemented a special pilot project in Spain with one of the world's largest food producers and integrated the Atlas 2D shuttle storage system. The highlight of the pallet system: the shuttles can move both in the storage lanes and in the main aisle and change direction independently. This means that the shuttle can move from one storage channel to another without being moved by an industrial truck. The customer therefore benefits from maximum space utilization and capacity in their deep-freeze warehouse despite the small storage area.

Rollouts, new projects and upgrades

Viastore Software can also showcase forward-looking projects in 2021: A kitchen manufacturer has built a modern production facility for kitchen furniture at its new location on around 110,000 square meters - the internal logistics and production are controlled by Viadat. The value chain software shows that it is far more than just a warehouse management system: Viadat not only integrates a large number of logistics systems, but also manages all production supply processes. The software takes on the classic tasks of a Manufacturing Execution System (MES). It thus creates the basis for the production of a highly varied, design-oriented kitchen line at marketable prices - and that with complete batch size 1 production.

Viastore Software developed a multi-stage concept for Milchwerke Mittelelbe, in which Viadat was first introduced in conjunction with the existing, manually operated forklift trucks and then connected to the existing ProAlpha ERP system. The ERP system now receives feedback from the WMS and can process it - a much more efficient way of working.

In addition, Viastore Software also carried out orders involving an upgrade of the warehouse management system: As part of the largest retrofit order in the company's history - the modernization and expansion of Rettenmaier & Söhne's logistics center - the existing Viadat warehouse management system was replaced with the latest version.

The article appeared in materialfluss 1-2/22.