NTN Antriebstechnik GmbH, based in Gardelegen, Saxony-Anhalt, is part of the globally active Japanese NTN Group. On an area of around 17,000 square meters, around 200 employees produce almost two million sideshafts, fixed joints and other components for cars and light commercial vehicles every year on highly automated, interlinked and computer-controlled production lines. "With the growing number of new customer projects, the number of raw materials and finished and semi-finished parts in stock has also increased," explains Hannes Pöls, Warehouse Manager at NTN Antriebstechnik GmbH. "As the increased complexity can only be managed with warehouse management software, we are currently equipping our warehouse for the future." As a first step, NTN is expanding its storage capacities and optimizing batch sizes in order to make better use of the load carriers. With the planned commissioning of new software at the end of this year, the warehouse will then be converted from static to chaotic warehousing. "Dynamic warehousing alone will enable us to achieve up to 40 percent better capacity utilization in the warehouse," says Pöls. NTN has also set up a production logistics system so that work steps can be bundled and carried out more efficiently. Instead of production employees fetching the required materials from the warehouse themselves, as was previously the case, logistics employees now do so. This allows production to focus on the actual production.

Convincing expertise and product design

As raw materials are suitable for block storage, but not finished and semi-finished parts, NTN has also purchased new racks and modern handheld scanners (MDE devices) to scan the storage locations. In order to adapt the labeling to the specific conditions on site, NTN had labels from various suppliers sent to it to test the layouts - in particular different barcodes. The decision was made in favor of ONK because "I was impressed by the expertise of the sales manager and the design of the products," says Pöls. Although the planned on-site visit had to be canceled due to the coronavirus, coordination was carried out by telephone and the exchange of images and samples.

Multicolored man-down labels improve clarity

ONK produced and supplied colored man-down labels for the shelves, which are up to four meters high. They are attached to the lowest crossbeam and enable forklift drivers to scan higher levels directly from the floor. Up to five QR codes and their clear text storage location designation are printed next to each other on each label. They show the levels below and all the levels above the storage space. To ensure that the logistics employees can assign the barcodes to the levels without errors, each level is highlighted in a different color, e.g. red for level 3 and blue for level 4. "This multi-colored design not only increases clarity for our employees, but also brings color and thus life to the plant," emphasizes Pöls.

Particularly small labels for assembly racks

The storage locations in the assembly and mobile shelving units, which are at man-height, have a barcode label on each compartment. "Because there is no large surface to attach them to, these labels had to be particularly small, but the QR code still had to be easy to read," says Pöls, describing the requirement. ONK printed the barcode, the corresponding six-digit parking space coordinates in plain text and a direction arrow on 35 mm high and 140 mm wide film labels and laminated them to protect them from increased stress. Finally, the storage spaces in the floor storage area are labeled with self-adhesive floor markings made of rigid PVC film. The parking space coordinates are printed on them as a QR code and in clear text. "There were still some adjustments to be made in the course of order processing. All in all, the service provided by ONK was excellent," says a satisfied Pöls.