The scenario: The products to be stored are subject to several fire protection classes and corresponding fire compartments must be provided. The use of a CO2 extinguishing system is prescribed in the fire compartment with the highest fire load. The other storage areas must be equipped with sprinkler systems and various extinguishing agents. The precarious thing about this is that the activation time of the CO2 extinguishing system would have left the forklift driver with no way of leaving the room during manual warehouse operation. These fire protection requirements meant that the investment project now had to be completely redesigned and the original plan with man-operated narrow-aisle forklifts was discarded.

Aviator with transfer unit as key technology
Against this background, the warehouse logistics solution is an automated storage system with a small number of overhead storage and retrieval machines, which, in combination with a transfer unit, integrates all the aisles. As the planning specifications provide for a high storage capacity and a medium system performance, the use of automatic floor-bound storage and retrieval machines can also be dispensed with for technical and economic reasons. This is because these have the serious disadvantage of not being able to work across different areas without problems due to the oversized fire protection doors required. In addition, these are not standard doors, which means that complex approval procedures have to be initiated.

In this case, Westfalia is using Aviator technology, which is best able to deal with the fire protection requirements in this constellation and has an advantage in terms of future performance increases. The smaller dimensions of the Aviator with transfer unit compared to conventional storage and retrieval machines allow the use of standard fire doors. If performance increases become necessary in the coming years, additional Aviators can be installed during operation as required.

About Westfalia
According to the company, Westfalia is one of the world's leading manufacturers of automated storage systems. As a general contractor, the company implements projects in intralogistics and along the supply chain. Westfalia uses its technologies as well as its IT and control expertise in a wide range of industries. Westfalia's automated loading and unloading systems for trucks can be used to link intralogistics with transportation logistics.