Gebhardt modernizes logistics for medical products

Paul Hartmann AG from Heidenheim in Württemberg can look back on 200 years of success as a leading international supplier of medical, care and hygiene products. What began in 1818 as a mechanical spinning mill in Heidenheim is now a globally active group with around 10,400 employees and a presence in almost 40 countries. The long-established company supplies hospitals, care facilities and specialist retailers with high-tech products.

The Logistics Center South (LZS) in Herbrechtingen is the company's logistics hub. With 65,000 pallet spaces and around 130 employees, it is the Hartmann Group's largest fully automated high-bay warehouse. The LZS is part of the factory site, which also houses a highly automated production facility and a materials and raw materials warehouse. A new automated small parts warehouse (AKL) became necessary due to the constant growth of the company and was to be built on the site.

Gebhardt Fördertechnik GmbH was awarded the contract in July 2012. Following a planning phase, construction began in January 2013 and went live the following October. During this time, Gebhardt planned, delivered, installed and commissioned a three-aisle mini-load warehouse operated by 39 one-level shuttles (OLS) with four picking workstations, separate conveyor lines for shipping cartons and source trays, a central order start with automatic carton erection and labeling, the connection of the conveyor technology to manual picking areas and seven shipping workstations. In addition to the warehouse hardware, Gebhardt also supplied software such as the Gebhardt Storeware MFS, the Gebhardt Storeware WMS and the system control. The project also included the modernization of the old existing warehouse consisting of two aisles (AKL). As part of the retrofit, the warehouse was connected to the new conveyor technology and picking system.

Designing the new warehouse as an OLS warehouse was the ideal solution for project manager Thomas Engelhard from Gebhardt: "Compared to traditional miniload solutions, the shuttle system offers higher storage and retrieval performance and effective, dynamic access to goods to be stored and retrieved according to the goods-to-person principle. The modular design of the individual lane sections also allows the storage system to be flexibly extended as required. The good use of space, low maintenance and servicing requirements, quick installation and low investment and operating costs also spoke in favor of this solution.

Highly dynamic material flow

In the goods receiving area, the goods delivered from production or the pallet warehouse are repacked in cartons by an employee from the pallet onto source trays, which are then transported to the OLS warehouse via conveyor technology. All three aisles of the shuttle warehouse are each equipped with a storage/retrieval lifter in the pre-zone, which can pick up and drop off two containers at the same time. This means that each individual lifter can store or retrieve 528 trays per hour. Together, they therefore perform around 1,500 double cycles per hour. The warehouse has around 4,500 storage locations for trays and also offers additional space as a buffer for shipping cartons.