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Optimal storage technology for stainless steel service centre
Quick access and increased order picking
The ACERINOX Deutschland GmbH in Langenfeld, subsidiary of ACERINOX SA - Spain - opened another stainless steel service centre with a storage area of 5,500 square meters in June 2003 in the industrial area "Berner Feld" in Rottweil, which was quickly increased to the current final size of about 8,500 square meters of built area.
Reasons for the new building was among other things the use of direct proximity to many consumers in southern Germany and the convenient location to the other countries serviced by ACERINOX Deutschland.
The product range of Acerinox includes: rust and acid resistant bands in standard and fixed widths, sheets and cold-hot rolled, flat steel, bright stainless steel, wire and angle.
In the first phase the materials were stored at the new location once on the floor and arranged there with forklifts for individual commissions. Due to the rapidly growing demand and the associated increase in production, an optimized warehouse must be searched for.
The most important criteria for the restructuring of profile camp were direct access to each individual profile, as a possibility of space-saving storage and fast commissioning. For the planning and subsequent delivery of the new storage system one can obtain a specialist and market leader for flexible shelf, the Ohra Regalanlagen GmbH in Kerpen. In the beginning of 2006 the initial discussion for the place for camp took place in Rottweil for the responsible employees of Acerinox and the Ohra technical consultants.
The target was to accommodate more than 3,500 tons of stainless steel profiles in some 1,500 different sizes and length of shelves so that any direct access to any profile would be possible at any time. Moreover, these quantities were to be accommodated on an area of just under 1,500 square meters.
The solution was a shelf system with a height of 7.50 m and 14 layers stacked in a storage capacity of 1200 kilograms per each shelf with a length of 1,250 mm.
Guide rails on the shelf feet and use of Hubtex-lift trucks allows a four-way aisle width of only 2.42 m, which also had to be secured by a security system in order to avoid meeting of people and trucks in these narrow aisle.
At the rear end of the shelves the truck is stopped automatically by the transponder embedded in the ground. Once moved into a corridor, the truck driver can concentrate fully on his task of input and externalization. By narrow aisle and guide rail the other necessities in the steering gear has been completely eliminated.
In order to ensure the most rapid location of desired items, each article is assigned with an article number for storage area. Using the built-in camera on trucks, the article number in the storage area is compared with the article number on commodity which can be in- or outsourced, in order to avoid wrong storage or withdrawal.
Already in the summer of 2006, the shelves could then be delivered and installed professionally by Ohra mechanics. Thanks to the positive experience with the profile storage one has decided on Acerinox now also to plan the area of wire coils through Ohra and have more effective means of building a special pallet shelf system.
