When biotechnology company Roche outgrew its warehouse facilities in southern Germany it chose Dematic for its new automatic high-bay warehouse with three aisles. The warehouse installation built in Penzberg in the direct proximity of the production facility is around 50 metres long, 15 metres wide and 30 metres high. There are suitable picking and placing positions in the new warehouse ante-zone. Dematic also provided the material flow computer from its IT Logistics Suite and integrated the warehouse into Roche’s SAP architecture. The warehouse thus achieved the maximum possible degree of automation.
Every aisle of the new building is equipped with an automatic S/R machine and is a separate temperature zone of its own: one aisle with normal temperature at +20°C offers around 1,000 pallet storage locations, the second aisle cooled to +4°C has space for around 1,300 pallets, and the aisle deep frozen to -20°C accommodates around 1,100 pallets.
Three docking stations for trucks and two forklift docks for goods receipt and issue are set up in the high-bay warehouse’s goods-in/ goods-out header construction.
Automatic conveyors link the high-bay warehouse with goods-in/goods out and the picking and placing area. Up to 30 different load carrier types have to be handled in the logistics system. They are measured in a contour-checking station in goods receipt and then identified with a scanner. Depending on the barcode content, the corresponding aisle in the room temperature warehouse, in the cooling warehouse or in the refrigerated warehouse is chosen.
On the basis of the measured result, the load carrier is positioned at the transfer position to the S/R machine and is then placed in storage in the suitable compartment.
