Warehouse and production perfectly coordinated

The product range of Erwin Halder KG in Achstetten-Bronnen includes fixture systems, a multi-vice and conventional clamping devices. A standard range of standard parts with over 8,000 items from stock, hand tools and aviation products round off the large product range.

To manage this wide range of products with fully assembled parts and semi-finished products, Halder previously used a semi-automated combination of pallet racking and storage lifts. "However, with the continuous increase in our product range, warehousing with this system became increasingly complex due to increased replenishment trips between the pallet racks and the storage lifts. In addition, an increase in capacity was absolutely necessary, which would only have been possible to a limited extent with the previous system without a new building," says Operations Manager Michael Dunz, adding: "The decision to install a completely new intralogistics system was therefore only logical."

Servus Intralogistics

Servus Intralogistics develops, produces and supplies customized intralogistics solutions from a single source for its customers in a wide range of industries. Servus uses a modular system that makes it possible to link all areas of the company, from incoming goods, warehouse (AKL), production, assembly and order picking through to outgoing goods, with a single logistics system. At the heart of the Servus system are the globally unique, intelligent and autonomous transport robots ARC (Autonomous Robotic Carrier), which merge logistics and production into a single unit.

Merging logistics and production

Halder also wanted to use the changeover to a new warehouse and material transport system to improve other factors: the existing hall was to be better utilized and unnecessary, non-value-adding activities, such as replenishment trips and interim storage, were to be eliminated. The new warehouse management system should also help here.

All work stations, such as order picking, are positioned directly at the miniload to make extremely efficient use of the available space.

Erwin Halder found the ideal solution in the autonomous transport robots (Autonomous Robotic Carrier, ARC3) from Servus Intralogistics in Dornbirn, Austria. These save Halder time by delivering the goods just-in-time to the man or to production according to the pull principle, and they save space because Servus uses the available space extremely efficiently. "At Halder, our transport robots do not travel overhead on the hall ceiling as is usually the case, but we were still able to implement the Servus system with a relatively small footprint," explains Christian Beer, owner and Managing Director of Servus Intralogistics. And this is despite the fact that Servus connects the incoming goods, order picking and automated small parts warehouse areas without interfaces and also supplies the assembly department.

The Servus scope of delivery included all workstations, such as picking, assembly connection, goods receipt and goods issue with the corresponding I-points (human-machine interface), as well as the automated small parts warehouse (AS/RS) including warehouse management software. "In addition to the highest storage density that our miniload systems have, this also gives the customer the advantage of a possible storage fill level of over 99%," says Beer, which Operations Manager Dunz confirms: "We can store more items without having to expand the existing hall capacity."

Flexible for the future despite automation

After two years since commissioning, Operations Manager Michael Dunz can say that all expectations have been met to his complete satisfaction: "The transport system has been perfectly tailored to our requirements. We now have an improved material flow and shorter throughput times. Stock in circulation, interim storage and waiting times have been greatly reduced. The employees receive the goods just-in-time at their workstations. The Servus system is so flexible that we can easily adapt it to larger incoming orders and changing production processes, for example." Halder and Servus have thus shown that automation and flexibility are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

www.halder.com/dewww.servus.info