High-bay warehouse for dairy products – fast and efficient

In a dairy plant that makes fresh products and articles destined for the cold chain, warehousing technology is of paramount importance. Due to its soaring growth in recent years, Gropper Dairy in Bissingen, Bavaria, has had to significantly upsize and modernise the capacities of its high-bay warehousing operation. The triple-aisle high-bay warehouse was to be brought up to the latest state of the art, in regard to both its capacity and speed, and to the control system and SAP integration as well.
Now that the high-bay warehouse has been upsized by around 25,500 m³ to seven aisles, it can meanwhile accommodate 5,880 pallets instead of the previous 2,520. This has enabled retrieval speed to be increased from 90 to 200 pallets an hour. Krones as the main contractor was required to ensure seamless integration of the material flows for production disposal, storage, relocation and readying for dispatch, beginning with the entire steel construction work, and the roof and walls, all the way through to expansion and integration of the conveyor systems into their existing counterparts. The Krones APW System C also comprises the integration of the new control system, the new material flow computer and its interfacing with the ERP system.
The new warehouse is equipped with four automatic storage and retrieval units in single-column design with integrated active load stabilisation. All automatic storage and retrieval units are directly linked up to the Krones material flow computer via the Simatic S7 programmable logic control system and the TCP/IP standard Ethernet link. The material flow computer coordinates and monitors the conveyors, including the interfacing with order-picking, production and dispatch.