"Simply install confidence" - this is what the family business Wildeboer, founded in 1939, stands for. With an extensive vertical range of manufacture, the engineering company develops and produces components for the areas of fire protection and sound insulation, air distribution and building systems technology - components "made in Germany". The company's head office is located in Weener in East Frisia and is complemented by further sites in Laupheim, Lützen and Utrecht. Over 350 employees work at the headquarters on a total production area of 60,000 square meters.

Decentralized storage slows down processes

At the East Frisian company, a lack of storage capacity meant that large quantities of material had to be stored temporarily in decentralized manual warehouses and on staging areas in the production halls. "Our aim was to centralize the functional areas along the internal logistics chain, introduce a consistent goods-to-person principle and at the same time ensure end-to-end material traceability," explains Arne Bröske, Head of Production at Wildeboer. "The automation of our processes was essential for this." A central, automated storage system was not only intended to minimize manual processes, but also to open up additional space for assembly and production.

Strategic partnership

After Wildeboer had commissioned an external planner with the logistics planning of the automated processes in the warehouse, the decision was made - based on a recommendation - in favor of in-depth expertise from Unitechnik Systems. One of the decisive criteria for the cooperation was Unitechnik's distinct understanding of the process. Equally decisive was the vendor-independent and solution-oriented elaboration of the detailed planning by a medium-sized family business, into which the experience from many realized projects has flowed.

Working together, Wildeboer and Unitechnik initially developed an overall logistics concept that included the separation of production and storage areas as well as the expansion of a total of 10,500 square meters of logistics space. The concept was primarily geared towards the scalability of the logistics. Unitechnik was able to design the storage systems in such a way that they could grow flexibly with future requirements. Process reliability is also a key requirement of the concept: the construction of a new logistics center should ensure reliable production supply and goods dispatch with high availability. Inventory management based on the first-in-first-out principle should guarantee seamless goods tracking. In addition, Unitechnik was able to take into account the supply and connection of component assemblies on different floors in the design. The automated interim storage of customer-specific manufactured products and the dispatch buffering of pre-packed consignments should also contribute to the optimization of Wildeboer's logistics processes. Another key factor is the high degree of automation, which enables ergonomic and efficient workstations in incoming goods, order picking and shipping. These new logistics processes aim to reduce walking distances for employees and manual transportation to a minimum.

Digital warehouse management optimizes processes

The logistics center implemented by Unitechnik is Wildeboer's central material flow hub. At its center are a three-aisle high-bay warehouse for Euro pallets and mesh boxes with 9,230 storage locations and a single-aisle automated small parts warehouse for KLT containers. Raw materials, semi-finished and finished products are stored here. Material for both production and customer orders is assembled at combined pallet and container picking stations. The raw materials for production are transferred to various driverless transport systems. All manufactured components are in turn collected from production by these AGV vehicles, delivered to the Unitechnik conveyor system and stored. The driverless transport systems were procured and commissioned by Wildeboer itself. The special thing about it: in order to be independent of individual manufacturers, Wildeboer relies on a fleet management system in accordance with the VDA 5050 standard. In future, autonomous cleaning robots will even be on the road and "coordinate" with their productive colleagues.

The consolidation of orders plays a major role at Wildeboer. The aim is to minimize the shipping volume. To this end, the pallets destined for customer orders are first automatically stored temporarily in a highly dynamic shipping buffer. The pallets retrieved by Wildeboer's own consolidation software automatically move into the consolidation zone. According to the "Pack by Light" principle, the employee can see at a glance which pallets belong to the same order via colored light displays and arranges the items in such a way that as few pallets as possible are required. This consolidation saves freight costs and protects the environment.

As the collaboration between Wildeboer and Unitechnik began in 2019, the construction of the new logistics center was affected by the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. Delivery bottlenecks not only led to delays in the schedule, but also demanded a high degree of flexibility from everyone involved in the project. "Timely agreements and well-coordinated collaboration were crucial throughout the course of the project," emphasizes Arne Bröske. "All the more reason for us to appreciate having a competent system integrator like Unitechnik at our side, with whom the partnership-based cooperation was characterized by uncomplicated agreements."

Lifetime partnership for sustainable success

Even after the project has been completed, both project partners remain in regular contact and exchange information with each other. "It is particularly important for us to remain a reliable contact for Wildeboer even after the successful implementation," explains Yusuf Kaya, Key Account Manager for logistics systems at Unitechnik. Unitechnik laid the foundations for future expansions right at the start of the project: The interfaces of the new logistics center were prepared in terms of software and conveyor technology so that Wildeboer could easily integrate driverless transport systems.