Fully automated warehouse improves HERMA's customer service
HERMA is Europe's leading specialist in self-adhesive technology (adhesive material, labeling systems and stationery). A state-of-the-art warehouse has been set up in Filderstadt, Germany, to service customers all around the world. The dynamic growth of HERMA's business required the utmost flexibility when it came to planning and constructing the warehouse. Vanderlande Industries supplied the order picking system. One challenge was to ensure that orders received well into the afternoon could reliably be dispatched the following day. Some highlights of the system are:
- Depalletising robot at goods receiving
- 11 QUICKSTORE miniload AS/RS with 101.000 storage locations
- 14 goods-to-man order picking workstations
- Robotic palletiser
The entire conveyor system had to be geared to and suitable for a specific dimension of loose lidded carton. This is the main type of carton used for storing, picking and shipment. The conveyor system's congestion management provision had to take account of extreme fluctuations in carton weight, which can range from as little as 250g when empty to as much as 50kg when full. Furthermore, the solution had to provide for optimal machine-machine (miniload - conveyor system) and machine-person (order picking stations - pickers) interaction.
The automated order fulfilment system enables HERMA to respond more quickly to customer orders, thereby improving service. Whereas the former conventional order fulfilment system was incapable of dispatching more than 1,000 cartons/day, the new system can do as much, or more, in just one hour:
"With complex systems such as this, there can always be last minute changes: responding to this challenge is one of Vanderlande Industries' key strengths – flexibility in implementation."
Frank Baude, Logistics Manager at HERMA
