Steel trader cuts picking time for long products by 80 %
Initially, Insubud Sp. z o.o., a Polish steel distributor, stored its long products exclusively on the floor and on stacking racks. This resulted in inefficiencies in terms of space utilisation, visibility and, above all, access times. The decision to install a Remmert honeycomb storage system was a turning point. Among many other benefits, picking times were reduced by 80 per cent.
The steel trade benefits greatly from specialized storage systems such as honeycomb storage.
The goods-to-person principle has brought significant benefits to the company: picking times have been drastically reduced, and the work is now much more ergonomic.
With its own fleet of vehicles, which delivers within a 200-kilometer radius of its facility in Rakoniewice, Poland, and over 10,000 tons of inventory, Insbud has built a reputation for reliability and on-time delivery.
Insbud Sp. z o.o. has been an established player in the Polish steel trade since 1995. As a co-founder of the European Steel Group, the company works with international steel mills to offer a comprehensive portfolio of steel products - from sheets and profiles to reinforcing steel and wire products. With its own fleet of vehicles delivering within a 200 km radius of its site in Rakoniewice, Poland, and over 10,000 tons of stock, Insbud has built a reputation for reliability and on-time delivery.
Behind the scenes, however, the company's warehouse operations looked very different in the early years. For years, long goods of all weight classes were stored flat in conventional stacking racks, which were operated by manually controlled overhead cranes. Accessing materials that were stored underneath other items required time-consuming stock transfer processes. There was no professional warehouse management system in place - employees often had to physically search for specific materials, making customer ordering too often a labor-intensive and frustrating process.
As a result, picking a single customer order took on average around an hour. As order volumes increased, these operational bottlenecks became critical barriers to further expansion. Inefficient warehouse utilization, slow throughput and strenuous manual handling were limiting Insbud's competitiveness - and its potential.
"Goods-to-person" principle brought the turnaround
Remmert, a leading German specialist for automated storage and retrieval systems for long goods and sheet metal, developed a comprehensive intralogistics concept that was specifically tailored to Insbud's needs. At the heart of the solution was the replacement of the old stacking rack system with a state-of-the-art Remmert honeycomb warehouse - a fully automated high-performance storage system positioned at the heart of the warehouse.
Following site analysis, reference visits and close coordination with the Insbud team, Remmert planned a central honeycomb warehouse with four loading and unloading stations on both long sides of the warehouse. This arrangement was deliberately chosen to enable simultaneous storage and retrieval processes and to minimize bottlenecks at peak times.
On delivery, the incoming materials are loaded directly into storage cassettes using the indoor crane. The material data is entered into the Remmert WMS (Warehouse Management Software) via a terminal at the incoming goods station. The stacker crane picks up the cassette immediately and automatically stores it in the rack. Thanks to the SRM's design with two carriages, a full cassette can be picked up within seconds and an empty cassette made available for the next delivery - without waiting times or idling.
Insbud uses Remmert's quick-change stations for picking outgoing orders. These ergonomically optimized work stations have two parallel conveyor tracks: While employees pick material for the current customer order from the front cassette, the next cassette is already pre-positioned on the rear lane. The cassette rotation takes place independently of the SRM so that cassette changes can take place in parallel with the picking process. The walking distances for employees are drastically reduced and waiting times are virtually eliminated.
The results: 80% faster, safer and smarter
The most noticeable result of the Remmert storage technology at Insbud was the change in picking times. What previously took around 60 minutes is now completed in around 10 minutes - a reduction of 80%. This single improvement fundamentally changes Insbud's ability to serve customers: more orders can be processed per shift, response times to urgent requests improve dramatically and overall reliability of deliveries increases.
Real-time inventory visibility via the WMS
As the Remmert WMS now manages the entire inventory in real time, time-consuming manual searches for storage locations are a thing of the past. Every cassette and every material location is digitally recorded and can be called up via a terminal. Accidental mix-ups - a persistent problem in traditional warehouse environments - are avoided.
Expanded product range and increased storage capacity
The transition from storage on the floor and in stacking racks to the vertical honeycomb system has freed up considerable space within the same hall area. Insbud used this newly available capacity to expand its product range and increase storage depth. The company can now store a greater variety of steel products, positioning it more competitively against distributors with larger facilities.
Improved ergonomics and employee satisfaction
Handling unwieldy long goods - which sometimes weigh several tons and are several meters long - is physically demanding and dangerous. With the Remmert honeycomb storage system, the SRM takes over all movements of the cassettes at height and within the rack structure. The operators work exclusively at the ergonomically designed picking stations at floor level. According to Insbud, this has led to a measurable increase in job satisfaction among warehouse employees and improved employee retention.
Conclusion
Insbud's conversion from a conventionally operated warehouse based on stacking racks to a fully automated Remmert honeycomb warehouse illustrates the concrete competitive advantages that modern intralogistics technology can offer. An 80% reduction in picking time, real-time inventory monitoring, increased product capacity and a safer working environment are not incremental improvements - they are the foundation for a new phase of business growth.
For companies in the steel distribution and long goods handling sectors facing similar challenges, the Insbud case offers a compelling proof of concept. The "goods-to-person" principle, realized by Remmert honeycomb technology, sets new standards for what automated long goods storage can achieve.