Optimal material flow in individual part picking

Published on: March 9, 2015 / Update from: April 24, 2021 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

[In collaboration with Kardex Remstar and Servus Intralogistics – ADVERTISING]

“Mastering complexity – shaping the future intelligently” is the motto of this year’s LogiMAT in Stuttgart . A motto that aptly describes the increasingly complicated and demanding processes in logistics. A logistics in which comprehensive solutions are increasingly required that help companies to holistically cope with the increased requirements. This is particularly true for intralogistics companies, whose customers have to store and pick ever larger quantities of items in ever faster times in more and more individual orders.

There are clear advantages in the industry to those manufacturers who manage to cover the intralogistics process from goods receipt, storage and picking to consolidation and shipping of small orders with one application. The provider's market opportunities increase if the four stations mentioned are intelligently networked with one another.

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From the pallet to the shipping of individual parts

The intralogistics manufacturer Kardex Remstar, for example, is responding to the market trend towards a growing variety of items, small orders and shorter delivery times with standardized applications that help to significantly reduce turnaround times for orders. The manufacturer's goal is to offer customers from trade and production simple intralogistics solutions for increasingly complex material flows.

Station 1: Goods receipt

At the first station “Incoming goods and receipt”, sorted pallets with packaging units are initially picked up using the warehouse management software developed by Kardex Remstar. The direct and safe transport to storage is then carried out by the MMove-CrossDrive, a universal vehicle for the transport of pallets and pallet boxes, which was developed by Mlog, which is part of the Kardex Group.

Station 2: Outer packaging

Here, the delivered packaging units are stored in the Kardex Remstar Shuttle XP 500 storage lift and repackaged into order boxes on two trays that are simultaneously available in the service opening. After the new outsourcing, the transport to the other stations is carried out by autonomous transport robots from the manufacturer Servus Intralogistics. They pick up the order boxes and transport them precisely to the next station using a ceiling-mounted transport system.

Station 3: Picking

The main aim here is to provide individual parts more quickly and achieve high pick rates. This is where the newest member of Kardex Remstar's lightweight product family comes into play. Specially developed for the efficient storage and picking of small parts in individual orders, the machine can achieve up to 500 picks per picking station per hour. Depending on the version, up to 3,000 KLT or other commercially available AKL-compatible containers can be stored per device, with many times the capacity possible thanks to the unlimited arrangement of devices. Thanks to its space-saving design and the height of which can be individually adjusted to the given ceiling dimensions, this dynamic provision system allows you to make optimal use of spaces.

In addition to handling times, the new solution scores particularly well in terms of ergonomics and energy balance. For example, the system saves around 50 percent of energy compared to an automatic small parts warehouse (AKL).

Station 4: Buffering and consolidation

Here, a circulation rack from the Megamat series acts as an automated buffer warehouse where small orders are temporarily stored until they are finally consolidated and transported for shipping.

In summary, the entire storage process can be managed with the help of the device and software solutions from a single provider. This has the particular advantage that friction losses are avoided by interlinking different systems and there is also only one contact person for all questions about the device solution.