In principle, we have relocated an entire factory and the warehouse with incoming goods and dispatch," explains Andreas Dürwald, Plant Manager Production and Logistics at Gira Giersiepen, based in Radevormwald. In 2014, the full-service provider of system solutions for electrotechnical and digitally networked building control began planning a new development, production and logistics center. "The old site offered no scope for expansion," says Sara Schöpker, Production Logistics/Production Control at Gira, explaining the background. The contract for the logistics concept and implementation was awarded to system integrator Aberle as the general contractor for intralogistics. Within ten months, Aberle realized a logistics system with building equipment that is precisely tailored to the requirements of the medium-sized manufacturer. Commissioning took place at the beginning of October 2018.

Foundation for company growth
"The biggest challenge was relocating an entire production and logistics operation during ongoing operations," says Schöpker. "With the new facility, we have geared production and logistics towards maximum process efficiency and optimal services for production supply and shipping. They form a good basis for further company growth." This objective is supported by the extensive process automation and intelligent material flow in the logistics center. Incoming and outgoing goods pass through the same gates in a U-shaped flow. In the inbound area, incoming components are received, stored and supplied to production. Finished products and components flow back from production to the storage facility and outgoing goods. All associated processes are sequenced according to requirements.

In addition to a cantilever racking system, Aberle built a fully automated, 4-aisle high-bay pallet warehouse (HBW) with around 6,000 storage locations for incoming goods processing, storage and production supply and disposal. Components from suppliers and items from the company's own production are stored here. It serves as a finished goods warehouse, for the assembly supply of production and as a replenishment warehouse for the containerized articles, which are kept ready in the new automated small parts warehouse (AKL), as well as - with the connected six picking workstations - as a picking warehouse for order production with larger containers. Deliveries are made in small load carriers and cardboard boxes suitable for storage as well as palletized and in load carriers to be repacked. The palletized goods are distributed to the respective storage areas with system support via industrial trucks and transfer points or an area-linking pre-zone loop with one storage and one retrieval point each. The incoming goods are fed in at transfer stations at floor level.

"Pick & pack" directly from the pallet
Aberle has set up more than 50 workstations for warehouse processes and fast order production in the new logistics system. In addition to the usual goods-in and NOK workstations, as well as the repacking, consolidation and packing workstations, this primarily relates to picking stations that are directly integrated into the high-bay warehouse and miniload. 68 pallet flow channels with gravity roller conveyors, which are served from the rear by high-bay warehouse stacker cranes on one of the two long sides of the high-bay warehouse, enable order items to be picked directly from the pallet to the pallet at fast-pick stations - "pick & pack". "The majority of our orders, which we ship to almost 40 countries, are parcel consignments, which we consolidate by destination and either palletize in the outgoing goods area or load directly into the trailers and swap bodies at the 13 incoming and outgoing goods gates via the installed telescopic conveyors," explains Dominik Ritsche, Deputy Head of Shipping.

For this reason, the processes were designed according to the goods-to-employee principle, especially for small parts. To this end, Aberle initially set up a 5-aisle mini-load warehouse for the mixed 2-fold to 4-fold deep storage of containers in two different sizes. Well over 300,000 storage locations are available for small load carriers based on a container footprint of 400 x 300 mm. Special feature: Ten storage and retrieval machines (SRMs) work in parallel in the five 73-meter-long aisles of the miniload warehouse - two per aisle. Aberle's component control system, which was connected to the customer's SAP EWM WMS, coordinates the processes. "In this way, we were able to increase throughput and provision at the picking stations enormously in view of the dimensions of the small parts warehouse," says Aberle project manager Giuseppe Oliveri, illustrating the concept, in which a total of up to 1,400 containers per hour are moved in the system with a handling capacity of 70 double cycles per hour per stacker crane. "On the other hand, this system concept makes it possible to set up two picking areas that are directly connected to or integrated into the miniload."

The conveyor technology at the front of the miniload not only automatically serves eight inbound and nine outbound picking and eight packing stations and two consolidation workstations. Instead, a walk-in picking aisle has also been set up between AKL aisles 1 and 2. Ten picking stations are integrated there for accessing larger items and fast-moving items. At these stations, the employees assemble the order items according to the goods-to-employee principle and supported by a pick-by-light system (PbL). Picking takes place from flow racks with 882 channels and a gradient from the SRM aisles to the picking aisle. They are served at the rear directly by the miniload SRMs in the two adjacent aisles. The order items picked directly into the shipping cartons according to the "pick & pack" principle are then taken by the container technology to the consolidation and packing workstations. Scales in the conveyor system ensure quality assurance. Telescopic conveyor belts are used to load the outgoing goods onto the waiting trailers.

Focus on sustainability
The company is also paying particular attention to the sustainability of the new building. An intelligent concept for heating and cooling as well as a combined heat and power plant, which supplies electricity for the building's own needs, reduce the complex's energy requirements by 45 percent compared to conventional systems. Aberle's PMS process management system also offers a visualization system for transparency regarding the status and utilization of the plant. The PMS module PMS-E for energy efficiency also supports energy-efficient stacker crane control and the sustainable use of resources.
Another future-oriented aspect is the system's expandability. The high-bay warehouse can easily be extended to seven aisles and integrated into the material flows and the compact pallet and container conveyor technology. For the miniload, corresponding expansion options to ten aisles or alternative storage technologies have been taken into account. "With appropriate expansions, we can double the capacities and workstations as required during ongoing operations," summarizes Sara Schöpker: "All in all, a successful relocation and a successful new construction project."