If the goods have to leave the warehouse quickly today

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Published on: September 22, 2020 / update from: September 26, 2020 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

Who does not know that? A customer urgently needs an item. It's just before closing time. The goods must be with the buyer tomorrow.

If the goods need to leave the warehouse quickly today - Image: @xpert.digital

If the goods need to be taken out of the warehouse quickly today – Image: @xpert.digital

These little business crises in Germany happen every day. A statistical comparison to marriage crises would be nonsense. But the difference is, one suspects that it can degenerate a tragedy if the goods do not arrive at the customer in time. The largest horror scenario: The entire construction site stands still because this is exactly one part that was ordered from “us”.

It affects all industries. From manufacturing to selling. Whether ordering online or by telephone.

It's all bad enough, it gets a little worse: the order can still be processed, the goods can still be sent out by post, the goods are there, only there is a breakdown in the warehouse. Be it personnel or technical: you can't get to the goods. System failure.

We know it too: some people are affected more, others less so. But that is no coincidence. If you take a closer look, it becomes clear why this is the case.

Prevention, planning and maintenance of your own inventory are just as elementary as the business idea. The focus on sales and distribution is important. And just as you plan for all eventualities in this area (customer liquidity, pricing, profit optimization, etc.), the same attention should be paid to the smooth technical process.

There is SCHUFA for the financial check and the TÜV for the technical check. But these are just snapshots and do not cover the entire range.

In fact, we have a high quality standard here in Germany and the qualitative differences between the various logistics providers are not large. Nevertheless, it depends on the details. Be it the issue of material slack, goodwill services and the error culture, as well as how the company solves such things quickly and unbureaucratically.

But there are also differences in the preliminary planning, the suggestions in the solution and their implementation. Ultimately, the decision as to which storage system to choose is based on trust and security based on years of experience.

It’s no different when it comes to warehouse automation. The automation of processes in intralogistics is already standard. Many rely on decades of experience and solutions.

Through e-commerce, through drivers such as Amazon Prime (ordered today, delivered tomorrow), customer requirements and wishes have increased. In short: it has to be quick and uncomplicated. Zack, ordered today, here tomorrow.

Zack, ordered today, here tomorrow – Image: @xpert.digital

This is the B2C version. But there is also another one. Namely those of the regular customers who have been built up over years of painstaking work. Those who trust you and where this trust is an essential feature of your own company. This is a sensitive factor for growth, especially in the B2B sector.

Full automation to send thousands of small orders every day on the same day?

In the course of digitalization and e-commerce, it can generally be observed that ordering processes are increasingly tailored to the needs of individual customers. Processing high volumes of orders quickly and safely requires full attention and automation. In some cases, existing automation processes are reaching their limits.

electrical wholesaler Elettroveneta was faced with this development . The Italian wholesale group, with its headquarters in Padua and another 34 branches, belongs to the French Sonepar group from Paris.

Elettroveneta faced the ever-increasing challenge of ensuring its loyal electrical retail customers received the parts they needed for the next day's work. At peak time, in the late afternoon, when the electricians finish their day's work, demand increases to 500 order lines per hour.

An automated container shuttle storage system (AS/RS) for the main distribution center in Tribano

Elettroveneta has specialized in the distribution of electrical installation materials for over 30 years. The wholesaler offers customers over 30,000 items and Elettroventa thousands of orders, some of them small, every day - the highest number usually between 4:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Up to 500 order lines must be picked per hour during this time. To ensure that customers receive their orders the next day, DAIFUKU set up its fully automated shuttle storage system.

Capacity for around 37,000 containers

The shuttle shelf M from DAIFKUKU – Image: DAIFKUKU

The small parts warehouse, a stacker crane (RSG) with goods-to-man picking, offers space for 37,000 containers. DAIFUKU shuttle rack M has three double-deep aisles with 19 storage levels over a length of 90 meters. The shuttle warehouse supplies six picking workstations with storage containers - at the same time, partially picked order containers are transported back into the storage system.

Expansion options included – Thinking ahead for the future – Scalable

The goods (in containers) travel from the incoming goods department to the small parts warehouse or directly to the outgoing goods department via a conveyor system. The system is designed in such a way that a fourth aisle and two additional picking workstations can be implemented with further growth.

Another aspect for full automation

The corona pandemic has shown that full automation can prevent an impending closure. Despite full warehouses, Amazon had to close its logistics centers in France due to a court ruling. The court found that the employees were not adequately protected against coronavirus risks. This would not have happened with a fully automated concept .

Suitable for:

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

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What will be crucial for the future will be how we secure the infrastructure of our key industries!

Three areas are of particular importance here:

Digital Intelligence (Digital Transformation, Internet Access, Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things)
Autonomous power supply (CO2 neutrality, planning security, safety for the environment)
Intralogistics/logistics (full automation, mobility of goods and people)

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