Consulting and planning for automated pallet high-bay warehouses (HRL) – building a high-bay warehouse

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Here the goods are stored on high racks. Between two rows of shelves there is an aisle in which storage and retrieval machines (RBG) move, e.g. B. can only move in the longitudinal direction of the aisle using rails or induction in order to store and remove goods from the shelves.

The stacker cranes are controlled automatically when picking takes place in the pre-zone (goods to person). However, they can also be operated manually when picking takes place directly on the shelf (person to goods). In the case of a warehouse with automatic operation, this part is protected from human access by means of fences and light barriers for safety reasons.

Each aisle has a storage and retrieval area. In an automatically operated high-bay warehouse, the loading units are moved using conveyor technology and moved to the pick-up and drop-off points for the forklifts. In manually operated high-bay warehouses, the frontmost places on the front of the rack are designed as transfer points to the forklifts.

The high-bay warehouse includes a supply or storage area through which the goods are delivered and from which the storage and retrieval machines pick up the goods for storage. Similarly, a removal area is required where the storage and retrieval machines place the goods after removal.

Components of this conveyor technology can be chain conveyors, driven roller conveyors, gravity roller conveyors, lifting tables, turntables, converters, automated guided vehicles, transfer carriages and vertical conveyors. A special feature of the storage and retrieval machines is a truck shuttle system for each storage level, as is the case when used in fully automatic compact storage.

In automatic picking warehouses, picking stations are arranged in the pre-zone. The pallet comes from the high-bay warehouse to the picking station, the goods are removed, booked out and the pallet goes back to the high-bay warehouse.

The goods are also identified in the preliminary zone for the warehouse management system or the material flow computer; this point is referred to as the I point (identification point). The goods are provided with automatically readable identifiers, for example a barcode or smart label, and are managed by the warehouse management system from here until they are booked out.

A high-bay warehouse is managed and controlled by an IT system. The landscape of these systems is very heterogeneous. An ERP system is almost always connected. This often includes a warehouse management system (LVS), which in turn communicates with a material flow computer. The material flow computer controls the conveyor technology in the pre-zone, the storage and retrieval machines and possibly technology in other trades. In less complex systems, the material flow computer is usually integrated into the warehouse management system.

The IT system coordinates the storage and retrieval of goods according to certain guidelines. Optimizing the software to individual requirements is largely responsible for the performance of the warehouse.

Storage is often carried out according to the principle of dynamic warehousing – previously called chaotic warehousing. To put it simply, this means that the system looks for any free space and stores the goods. If necessary, this chaotic principle can be supplemented with rules. For example, you can request that a material that is in several containers be distributed over several rows of shelves in such a way that different storage and retrieval machines can remove the material. This ensures that the material is available even if a stacker crane fails.

The ABC strategy to increase handling performance is also widespread. Here, the most frequently required items are stored in the A area (near the storage/retrieval area) of the warehouse. In the A area, the travel distances are relatively short and so are the storage/retrieval times. Similarly, the B area in the middle distance is used for less frequently used items and the C area in the rear part of the warehouse is used for rarely used items.

It is also possible to distribute the stored goods as equally as possible in terms of weight in order to load the shelf structure evenly.

Automated pallet high-bay warehouse – Image: Xpert.Digital / Chesky|Shutterstock.com

Suitable for:

Automated storage and retrieval system – AS/RS (Automatic storage and retrieval systems)

More about it here:

• Rack storage – Storage and shelving systems – Automated storage and retrieval systems – Automated storage and retrieval system – AS/RS (Automatic storage and retrieval systems)

Automatic small parts warehouse (AKL)

More about it here:

• Automatic small parts warehouse (AKL) – Automatic mini-load system – Vertical Buffer System / Modules

Suitable for:

• Buffer storage: For e-commerce, retail and manufacturing industries