The roots of brewing in České Budějovice date back to the 13th century and the Budweiser brewery is continuing the 700-year-old brewing tradition in the Czech town of České Budějovice. The brewery's new logistics center in České Budějovice, which was completed in spring 2018, now has 23 high-speed gates that can be passed through when loading the manufactured products. Nine more are integrated into the fully automated production process on the conveyor systems.

Focus on reliability
"The trouble-free operation of the doors is particularly important to us," explains Dalibor Čáp, Technical Manager at Budweiser Brewery. "Only if the systems work smoothly can we ensure that production and logistical processes in the plant can run without downtime." Because some of the products are cooled, a door malfunction would quickly result in an enormous economic loss. The systems are exposed to high loads: In some areas of the logistics center, over 250,000 opening cycles are completed per year.

Everything from a single source
Efaflex took care of the planning and installation of the doors and their connection to the logistics center's central control system. The Bavarian company also supplies the brewery with spare parts as required. Budweiser has been working with Efaflex since 2005.

Seven-aisle logistics center
The seven-aisle logistics center was added to an existing facility from 2009. It comprises around 20,000 pallet spaces. More than 160 pallets are stored and 280 pallets are retrieved every hour. The existing and new warehouses were also integrated into coordinated material flows with non-reactive product transportation.

Connecting two company premises
The connection between the production building and the new distribution center is made via a 164-meter-long, road-spanning bridge with an electrified monorail system (EMS) twelve meters above the road. This system transports more than 2,000 bottles per minute. In the opposite direction, pallets of empty bottles flow into the bottling plant.

The new bridge relieves traffic on the road between the two company sites, as the bottled beer and packaging material previously had to be transported between the two brewery sites by truck. Another EMS with 21 vehicles takes over the pallet transport between the high-bay warehouse pre-zone and the dispatch area in the new distribution center.

High-speed spiral door efa-sst
EFA-SST high-speed doors are highly economical thanks to their features. Efaflex offers the spiral doors for continuous use with thermally separated EFA-Therm insulating slats as standard for improved thermal insulation. The doors open at speeds of up to 2.5 m/s and are designed for 250,000 load cycles per year. Thanks to their high wind load capacity, the EFA-SST high-speed spiral doors are well suited as external doors. The spiral body is designed in such a way that the slats of the door leaf are guided past each other without contact and therefore wear-free and quietly.

About Efaflex
Efaflex produces high-speed doors for industrial applications. Founded in 1974, the company serves customers in industry, trade, food production and the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors, among others. According to the company, Efaflex is the only manufacturer of high-speed industrial doors to be listed in the World Market Leader Index, making it one of the 461 leading companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The company employs more than 1,200 people. Efaflex develops international markets with ten subsidiaries on five continents. The family-owned company generates over 50 percent of its turnover abroad.