Time and space are money. This is why it is indispensible to make good use of available warehouse space. High density warehouse systems allow to make best use of available space. Beyond this, intralogistics is moving towards installing automated systems aiming to make warehousing as efficient as possible. If both systems are smartly combined, maximum efficiency in warehousing can be achieved.
One type of the mentioned high density warehouse systems are so called channel systems. The basic ideas is as simple as it is efficient: A shuttle running on rails inside the channel picks up a pallet at the entrance of the rack level and automatically moves it down the channel, deposits it at the end and returns to the entrance to pick up the next pallet which has been unloaded from a lorry by a forklift truck meanwhile. If the shuttle is to operate in a different channel, it is relocated by the lift truck. The shuttle is remote controlled. This is a semi-automated solution in which the shuttle carries out the commands issued by a human operator. These solutions base on the “human-machine interface” and are therefore vulnerable to errors. Integrating a shuttle in a fully automated overall system would require an interface with a warehouse management to control the shuttles. This would enable fully automated storage and retrieval in channel racks with shuttles and automated trucks and replace the human-machine interface. Fitting the STILLPalletShuttle with an interface especially designed for communication with a master warehouse system as well as with automated warehouse trucks allows to install fully automated systems. These avoid handling errors and ensure transparency as well as traceability of all movements of materials.
In only nine weeks, STILL installed a raw materials warehouse including all required components for Kuraray Trosifol in Troisdorf close to Cologne. In a sophisticated material flow concept semi-automated shuttles in a channel rack communicate with fully automated reach trucks for the first time.