The dream of an unmanned long goods warehouse
What steel traders want from their own intralogistics is always the same: more picks per hour, maximum storage volume per square metre and at the same time less manpower and less material damage due to improper handling. Just an audacious dream? Not according to the steel logistics experts at Remmert! "With our systems specialized for the steel trade, we make this dream come true," says Martin Stöckle, market and product expert at Remmert GmbH. "Our honeycomb storage systems with a high degree of automation are the solution par excellence, especially for long goods traders."
Remmert offers highly automated storage systems so that long goods retailers can operate economically despite current market changes such as the shortage of skilled workers and increased energy prices. The gold standard is the honeycomb storage system, which enables fast and above all efficient material handling with low staffing levels. "Thanks to the automation of our storage systems, steel distributors specializing in long products can even run completely unmanned shifts. Our customers practically no longer need personnel for processing, such as sawing long goods," says Remmert product expert Stöckle.
With Remmert, the long goods trade can get to grips with the spectre of often wafer-thin staffing levels. Despite historically high levels of sickness, the trend towards shorter working days and a level of competence that is not always what management would wish for. With automated storage systems from Remmert, skilled workers can concentrate on those areas of work where they are indispensable and where they can develop their maximum effectiveness.
Many thousands of articles at your fingertips with enormous storage density
The long goods are stored in tailor-made storage cassettes, which are arranged in shelves with a honeycomb structure, in a way that is gentle on materials and always ready to hand. "The honeycomb structure also allows us to optimize the storage density at the site," says Martin Stöckle. "This is practical, especially for bulky and very heavy goods such as pipes, metal profiles or rods. Our systems can store many thousands of items; we use every square centimetre of storage space and the entire available height."
Compared to handling with cranes or forklifts, the storage and retrieval times are so fast that Remmert supplies its customers' picking or further processing operations with goods continuously and without interruption. This not only saves time and costs, but also enables steel traders to improve their delivery performance. "Even the most unwieldy long goods are quickly ready to hand thanks to our system," says Stöckle. "This means that picking orders can be processed quickly."
Gentle material flow, short picking times in the high-bay honeycomb warehouse
The storage and retrieval unit moves between the shelves and removes the required cassette fully automatically. The less the goods have to be moved by employees with the forklift truck, the less damage is caused to the material. This is particularly critical for stainless steel and aluminum. The S&R machine then takes the cassettes to the removal stations.
"Traditionally, people take over at this point with the help of manipulators. Either picking or further processing takes place, for example with the feeding of automatic saws," explains Stöckle. "But we at Remmert are thinking a few steps ahead. After all, the more manual operations are automated, the more efficient, safe and economical the processes in the storage system are."
Automation of the finishing work: automatic saws and articulated arm robots integrated
"In order to optimize intralogistics processes as a whole, we have a wide range of automation options that we can adapt to individual customer requirements on a modular basis. For example, automatic cut-off machines such as sawing machines can be connected to the warehouse solution regardless of the manufacturer." Among other things, Remmert uses a special PICK system for this purpose. The pick system picks up the goods in the cassette and transfers them to the next process. "The loading and unloading process of the automatic sawing machine is so fast that non-productive times can be drastically reduced; productivity is high," continues Stöckle. Measuring the material and returning the offcuts to the storage system is also automated.
Remmert's solutions further reduce the number of personnel required for processing, as the different products can be changed fully automatically. Martin Stöckle, not without pride: "Unmanned night shifts for sawing? No problem!" Remmert can also integrate articulated arm robots into the overall solution for handling the saw cuts.
WMS thinks ahead
No system can do without software. Logical! The WMS (Warehouse Management System) from Remmert is optimally designed for intralogistics in highly automated storage systems. The WMS optimizes the material flow for the shortest possible picking and further processing times, for example by pre-buffering the next cassette, so that downtimes are minimized.
Stöckle: "Thanks to the integration into the customer's ERP, we already know today what we will be doing tomorrow. So we already optimize the material flow for the following day. Our software notices if the storage and retrieval machine has not made any trips over a longer period of time and starts to reorganize the goods in the storage system. For example, fast-moving items are moved to the front or we optimize the route to make the material flow as fast as possible. Our customers have an exact overview of the stocks in the storage system at all times. This is the key to a functioning supply chain, from reordering from the steel manufacturer to punctual delivery to the end customer."
The article was first published at Internation Sheet Metal Review magazine.