Modernization
Sustainable retrofit for future-oriented book distribution
In order to ensure the sustainable, future-proof and efficient dispatch of over 100 million books a year, Vereinigte Verlagsauslieferung (VVA), part of Arvato, has fundamentally modernized its over 40-year-old high-bay pallet warehouse at the Gütersloh site in less than a year. This warehouse alone holds 60,000 Euro 1 pallets and stores and retrieves around 2,500 pallets on average every day.
After more than 40 years of continuous use and a total of around 50 million trips, all 14 storage and retrieval machines in the high-bay warehouse in Gütersloh are being replaced due to material fatigue." With this announcement, Vereinigte Verlagsauslieferung (VVA), part of Arvato, marked the start of its extensive retrofit of a landmark in March 2023: The world's largest fully automated warehouse in the 1980s - still the core system of its East Westphalian logistics center today - was to be equipped for the coming decades through intelligent investment in the latest, energy-efficient system and control technology. Without a new building. During ongoing operations.
Almost a year and many exciting moments later, the result has been impressive since the beginning of 2024. With new rack operation, 20 percent more storage and retrieval capacity is possible in the high-bay warehouse with 60,000 pallet spaces. Thanks to intelligent DC link coupling (the electricity generated from braking energy is immediately made available to other drives) and a newly developed sinusoidal energy recovery system, more than 12% of energy can now be fed back into the grid and 30% of energy can be saved overall. And cameras on the storage and retrieval machines now enable visually supported operational monitoring and accelerated fault clearance in the event of a problem.
The scope of the project included the complete replacement of the old storage and retrieval system and the installation of the new systems for the 14-aisle high-bay pallet warehouse - without interrupting ongoing operations. Two to three aisles were to be converted in five stages, without disrupting work in the other areas and without impacting customers in terms of item availability and delivery speed. The plan included dismantling the 34-metre-high, 16-tonne old storage and retrieval machines in the hall and removing them through the open roof using a heavy-duty crane - and transporting the new machines component by component through the roof into the warehouse to install them there.
A year earlier, an immediate neighbor had shown that this is possible and worthwhile: In 2022, the household appliance manufacturer Miele modernized its eight-aisle high-bay warehouse in Gütersloh in a similar way. Here, Stöcklin Logistik AG was able to recommend itself as a modernization partner and provider of innovative and future-proof intralogistics system solutions. At the beginning of 2023, Arvato also opted for intralogistics technology and implementation expertise from Stöcklin. From March 2023 to January 2024, three aisles were each overhauled within nine weeks during ongoing operations and
equipped with new rails and 14 high-performance Stöcklin MASTer42 SRMs.
Successful project progress and completion
The old rails and dismantled equipment were lifted out and the new high-performance technology was installed through the hall roof over four days using a 700-tonne heavy-duty crane. As the incoming and outgoing goods halls were within the crane's travel range, it was necessary to be considerate of loading and unloading trucks so as not to disrupt freight forwarding operations. In addition, intermittent strong winds with gusts of wind made it difficult to operate the cargo crane and carry out the lifting work with centimetre precision.
Despite all this, and despite initial delays in the delivery of materials at the start of the supply chain as a result of the Russian war of aggression, there were only a few delays. Stöcklin's many years of retrofit expertise, the partnership-based cooperation of all parties involved and, last but not least, a high degree of in-house production at its Technology Center in Laufen (Switzerland) were the basis for successfully compensating for the difficulties. The entire modernization phase took place without interrupting ongoing operations. Desired customer adaptations were made possible during the construction phase. All of Arvato's requirements were met.
"We are proud that, despite sometimes adverse conditions, including the outbreak of war in Ukraine, we were able to complete the project without any delays during ongoing operations. One decisive advantage was certainly that we were able to develop, design and manufacture almost the entire system and control technology under one roof at the Technology Center in Laufen and coordinate everything from a single source. This allowed us to build on reliably good quality and lean processing," concludes Urs Hasler, the Stöcklin project manager responsible for the modernization at VVA/Arvato.
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