In addition to spices, sauces and marinades, Hela Gewürzwerk Hermann Laue GmbH is particularly well-known for its curry spice ketchup. The product range currently comprises more than 4,000 different items, which are produced and stored at the Ahrensburg site and then delivered to more than 60 countries. As part of the "Hela 2025" programme, the manufacturer intends to modernize and expand its existing plant structure. In order to make the logistics processes at the site leaner and more efficient in this context, Hela has decided to build a highly scalable and flexible logistics center. The aim is to improve order picking quality, increase shipping performance and quality and take account of existing and future market developments - in particular the increasingly small-scale order picking. In addition, an existing high-bay warehouse is to be modernized and integrated into the new facility.

The center will be built on a total of 7,800 m² in silo construction. It includes a 4-aisle and two 3-aisle high-bay warehouses for Euro pallets and H1 hygiene pallets as well as a 2-aisle, automated small parts warehouse for containers with a total of 44 shuttles. This also includes a 4,200 m² logistics hall for order picking and dispatch. Unitechnik is providing the necessary container and pallet conveyor technology as well as an initial six expandable workstations for carton picking and two expandable workstations for pallet picking. Since Unitechnik completed the planning in April 2020, the new logistics center with the high-bay silo is currently being built.

Order picking effort greatly reduced
"The big challenge was to map our large range in a logistics center. We not only supply pallets to wholesalers, but also to small businesses that place manageable orders. Unitechnik has achieved this balance convincingly in the planning," says Markus Laue, partner at Hela. At the heart of the planning was the question of how best to map the various material flows in the future. On the basis of a comprehensive data analysis, Unitechnik worked with Hela to develop the necessary process optimizations. Changing the picking method to the goods-to-person principle was particularly important here. Based on the construction area specified by the factory planning with environmental restrictions, Unitechnik created layout designs, proposed a manufacturer-independent selection of technical components and visualized the future material flow using a simulation model. The logistical processes are controlled using Unitechnik's UniWare warehouse management system. The close connection to production is ensured via an interface to Hela's SAP system.