V-Zug's aim was and is to bring its entire material flow into the age of Industry 4.0 with the new building in Sulgen. The Gebhardt Intralogistics Group accompanied the development process from the first sketch through to the complete productive system and implemented two intralogistics systems for the new plant. On the one hand, these consist of a high-bay warehouse with a curve-going storage and retrieval machine for production supply and, on the other, a refrigerator testing area for 100% testing based on an automated guided vehicle system including the adjacent packaging area. The result was a process-optimized and future-proof concept that impresses with its high storage capacity, cost savings and the best possible ergonomics for employees.

For over a hundred years, the V-Zug Group, with its various segments, has made it its mission to make everyday cooking, dishwashing and washing easier with high-quality, innovative household appliances. As the Swiss market leader, the company lives Swiss values and brings them to life all over the world: with simple, individual solutions that inspire and delight for a lifetime. For some years now, the company has also been gaining a foothold in selected markets outside its own national borders. With around 2,000 employees worldwide, the V-Zug Group generates sales of 623 million Swiss francs. Expansion and increasing demand, particularly in the refrigeration segment, made it necessary to construct a new production building at the Sulgen site.

High-bay warehouse and stacker crane project for production supply

The task that V-Zug formulated for the new building initially sounded like a very difficult challenge to solve. The company was looking for a partner who could implement the high-bay warehouse (HBW) project with storage and retrieval machines (SRM) for production supply as well as the conveyor technology and automated guided vehicle (AGV) project for quality control and packaging - processes that had previously been carried out purely manually. A coherent overall concept tailored to the customer's requirements and extensive expertise in the field of AGVs ultimately tipped the scales in favor of Gebhardt.

The first system is a four-aisle high-bay warehouse measuring 51 meters long, 31 meters wide and 16 meters high. It offers around 4,700 pallet spaces on eight levels with different pallet heights. The HBW is equipped with two separate rack pre-zones and a curve-going SRM that can change aisles and therefore access all four. Storage takes place in the four aisles and in the double-deep racking at the front. The pallet conveyor technology from Gebhardt feeds wood or plastic boards with maximum dimensions of 1,300 x 900 x 2,400 millimetres and a maximum weight of 1,000 kilograms to the SRM. This enables the SRM to achieve a throughput of twelve storage and retrieval operations per hour.

Project conveyor technology and AGVs for quality control and packaging

The second system consists of a quality inspection zone for refrigerators with a subsequent packaging zone. Both the development of the AGV concept and the test stations and their inspection were carried out in close cooperation between V-Zug and Gebhardt. The user requirements were worked out and integrated in the best possible way. Gebhardt's stationary conveyor technology transports the refrigerators to the test room, where they are transferred to five Gebhardt Karis automated guided vehicles (AGVs). These bring the refrigerators to one of the 90 test stations specially designed for the requirements of V-Zug, which achieve a throughput of 410 tests in eight hours without the need for manual handling by the workers, as was necessary in the past. They are transported on polystyrene portables, with a maximum footprint of 635 x 635 millimetres and a height of between 400 and 1,850 millimetres. The maximum weight is 100 kilograms.

Once they have been checked, the AGVs pick up the appliances and transfer them back to the conveyor system, which transports them on to the subsequent packaging area. Immediately before the packaging area, the refrigerators are buffered at a height of 4.5 meters and on a 40-meter-long section. At the end of the buffer section, a vertical conveyor transports the appliances to a level of 0.6 meters and they are transported onwards to an ergonomic packaging workstation. The refrigerators are then transported onwards via the conveyor system, where they are strapped and transported to one of the three gravity roller conveyors via a transverse transfer carriage. These serve as buffer stations from which the forklift drivers remove the fridges and transport them to the goods issue area.

The two systems and the perfect coordination of these with the connecting conveyor technology have provided V-Zug with a solution that leads to an automated, process-optimized workflow and significantly increases storage capacity per square metre. The cost optimization and the enormous reduction in workload for employees, particularly in quality inspection, are further benefits of the solution.

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