Case Study

STILL supplied a combination of three automated series production industrial trucks (MX-X and EXV), perfectly coordinated with one another, for the new Danfoss Power Electronics A/S production warehouse in Tinglev, Denmark, including installation of all the system components. System optimisations are carried out via a cloud, using the iGo insights smart tool. The innovative ELOshield safety system gives pedestrians optimum protection from approaching trucks.

The manual production warehouses in Gråsten and Kliplev reached their capacity limits due to an increase in the product range of frequency converters for electric motors controllers. Martin Rosengreen Jessen, Danfoss Production Supervisor in the new Tinglev warehouse, says: “The aim was to expand capacity by combining the warehouse with an automatic storekeeping system. To ensure we are also flexibly equipped for the future, we decided to use the STILL iGo system with automated industrial trucks. As a result of full-service leasing for the next six years, we keep a constant eye on warehousing costs at the same time.” The automatic warehouse contains interfaces from the pallet conveyor systems to the AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles), in both the incoming and outgoing goods areas. Approximately 2,000 different articles are accommodated on about 8,800 pallets in accordance with an ABC analysis. The warehouse is currently split into two areas: firstly a narrow-aisle store for fully-automated operation, and secondly a semi-automated storage area, where narrow aisles for the MX-X alternate with wider corridors for manual order-picking from the lower two rows of the seven-metre-high shelves.

The new automatic warehouse guarantees daily AGV deliveries to the production facility in nearby Gråsten at three-hourly intervals on five days a week. As Martin Jessen emphasises: “The time saving is enormous. Firstly due to central stockholding, but mainly as a result of automating our production warehouse, which we operate 24/7. Requirements in the Tinglev warehouse will also change in the future due to the switchover to fabricating new product series. Incoming articles will then be received on full pallets in the same way as they are subsequently delivered out again. The conclusion drawn from this by Danfoss Distribution Services Warehouse & Distribution Consultant, Henrik Rosendahl Laursen: “Thus we will have less manual and more automated order picking in the future. Our new warehouse has optimum provision for this, because our careful planning paid attention to the scalability of the warehouse: We can install additional shelves for automatic order-picking in the wider aisles where fabrication components are currently still gathered together on pallets by hand.” Ole Lambrecht, STILL Denmarks’s project leader in Kolding, stresses the scalability of the warehouse: “We can respond quickly and flexibly to bigger capacity requirements in the future by using additional AGVs. For special campaigns, e.g. the changeover to automatic warehouse operation, we will also have our AGVs operated manually.”

STILL series model industrial trucks for end-to-end material flow automation are equipped with the iGo system’s automation kit. Identical components, controllers and interfaces create a powerfully efficient AGV in the shortest possible time. This process involves installing the following components:

• Laser scanners for truck navigation
• An automation box for the control unit that receives driving orders from the guidance system
• Indicator lights to display vehicle movements
• Safety laser scanners for 360° truck monitoring and personnel protection
• An user interface with a display screen and/or touchscreen
• An emergency stop button on the lift mast and display screen.

In addition, a matching sensor system was installed on each of the AGV’s forks for precise pallet recognition.
Various navigation technologies were coordinated with one another for safe, independent truck movements. Therefore, the MX-X trucks are inductively guided in the aisles. Outside of these, all AGVs navigate using laser scanners that continuously measure distances to installed reflectors.

Characteristic features of STILL’s iGo system are end-to-end automated material flow and the use of a range of series-production automatic trucks. Ole Lambrecht stresses that: “We analysed, planned and implemented the Danfoss automation in a demand-based way by choosing technologies that are optimally matched to one another. In this respect, short response times both when preparing the design and offer and in implementing the automation were decisive factors when awarding the order to STILL compared to market competitors.” After initial discussions in September 2018 and the award of contract in February 2019, installation took place from January to May 2020. Henrik Laursen adds that the ground plan of the first draft for the warehouse still included 50 intersections between AGVs and pedestrians. Thanks to optimisations in the careful planning phase, these were minimised to five intersections.

A transport and traffic guidance system controls and monitors the AGVs. Transport orders are created by a warehouse management system in the SAP host, and handed over to the guidance system. This generates a gigantic volume of valuable data 24/7, which is used to carry out thorough analysis of the automatic warehouse and its processes from a higher-level viewpoint in the Microsoft Cloud. STILL offers a tool for this assessment, iGo insights, which filters out relationships from the wealth of process information collected in the Cloud, and derives concrete recommendations for actions. Warehouse Consultant Henrik Laursen says: “This enables us to further optimise our system’s availability and performance efficiency.” The smart tool uses the machine learning principle to improve system performance.
All the data collected by the guidance system over a long period of time are uploaded to the cloud for evaluation, and can be accessed online via the encrypted web portal at any time. Thus no local infrastructure or hardware is needed.

The AI-assisted software recognises structures and calculates probabilities in the data flow, thus proactively enabling actions to be taken, e.g. when scheduling maintenance or repair work. Key figures for response times, traffic density, capacity utilisation and downtimes are also be used for monitoring purposes. The daily information about trends and deviations from norms are also proactively forward-looking. iGo insights is available on all web platforms for desktop PCs and mobile terminal devices. This also enables access at multiple locations.

iGo insights records all truck movements in heatmaps to identify and optimise performance bottlenecks. A playback function in this process enables precise error detection by looking back over the vehicle and system behaviour. As Ole Lambrecht explains: “System errors can be instantly rectified via remote maintenance. If there are malfunctions on the AGVs, our STILL Service responds within one hour. Malfunction error codes are shown on the AGV’s displays, and are read out by the Service and immediately put right. This makes an on-site workshop unnecessary. Additional costs are effectively saved in this way.

The ELO shield system comprises several components that intercommunicate via wireless, and collectively form the all-in-one warning system. If a truck encounters a pedestrian, the fixed module recognises the approaching truck. A visual and audible signal is given. The truck is even slowed down in the event of danger. Each lift truck is automatically assigned a speed adjustment when driving into and out of the aisles. AGVs are barred from entering corridors where order-picking is taking place. Thus the fixed module offers additional personal and collision protection. This also enables speed regulation for specific areas. During order-picking at a shelf, an AGV approaching at the other side can no longer put a pallet into storage on the shelf. This effectively prevents the danger of an accident during order-picking.

Summary: By using scalability, the Tinglev iGo automatic warehouse responds extremely flexibly to goods handling peaks. Martin Jessen’s satisfied summary: “Our new warehouse has already proved to be very good. During ongoing warehouse operation, we were able to use manually driven MX-X trucks to set up the shelves, aisle by aisle, for automatic operation. Initial analysis has already yielded a cost saving of around 20 percent.” The Tinglev warehouse is a real benchmark Project: Danfoss is currently building a modern distribution centre in Rødekro, using the same STILL technology and designed for automated operation by twelve MX-X and five EXV trucks.