“Equipment performance, quality and service were not the only criteria which had a major influence on our choice of storage system supplier. Our supplier also had to know about interfacing in order to link the machine to the storage system both physically and electronically for data transmission,“ said Mario Heinzig, adding ”Remmert carried out this work to a remarkably high standard. We had nothing to do with the machine integration, which is what we were looking for, so we were able to rely 100% on our experts.“

2Cut used the new sheet metal store to provide space-optimised storage for raw materials and semi-finished goods. The company now has 431 pallets available on a storage area of 390 m2 for this purpose. The raw materials are fed to the system by the job shop staff and transported via the storage and retrieval machine to a free pallet location. The PRO WMS Enterprise warehouse management system automatically assigns the storage locations according to the chaotic storage principle. In addition to the storage locations, the software also manages the associated item descriptions, item numbers and material quantities, thus allowing the subcontractor to have an accurate overview of the current stocks at all times and ensuring maximum transparency in the store. The software also has several optimisation strategies to define parameters such as, which machine must start with which preference. The warehouse management system passes all the relevant inventory data to the Infor ERP system and also communicates with the three Trumpf machines which order the required materials from the store via a data interface.

By using the new sheet metal cell, 2Cut has saved around 60% of the time required for material handling. This is particularly noticeable with the many small batch orders from the job shop. ”On the previous premises, it was often impossible to avoid long transport routes from the store to the machines,“ said Mario Heinzig. ”Today, we use optimised material and data streams and have reduced the idle times of our CNC machines by at least 40%.“ The new sheet metal store also reduces the storage area needed by more than 60% in comparison to the previous solution and releases three warehouse staff to work in the production department. The PRO WMS warehouse management system ensures instant stock management for the job shop and ongoing stock control. The sheet metal cell is set up for new machines and can be easily expanded, both in terms of processing and information technology.