SSI Schaefer has completed a 40-metre tall, rack-supported high bay warehouse production, storage and distribution facility in Fredericia, Denmark, for brewing giant Carlsberg. The centre as 76,000 pallet storage positions, an integrated pallet conveyor system with monorail and eight Schaefer compact cranes. It now operates via a warehouse management system for the replenishment of production lines and order picking and the sequential allocation of outgoing goods.
Lars Hansen, director of the Carlsberg Brewery, says: “The completely automated system is ideally tailored to our high standard throughput as well as exceeding performance requirements during peak times.”
“The biggest challenge was the tight schedule,” says Peter Lambrecht, project manager at SSI Schaefer. “The plant had to be complete and ready for use within 14 months of winning the contract. A large platform construction was erected in the main hall, the in-house rack, an eight-aisle rack system, and the warehouse management system (WMS) linked to Carlsberg’s SAP-inventory management system, were installed within an existing building during running operations. To provide an accurate tailored WMS with SAP-interface, IT-developing, test and simulation
programs took place simultaneously to the installation of the hardware in Fredericia.”
The plant in Fredericia has now been operating at full capacity for a number of months and the old warehouses in Copenhagen have been consolidated in the new distribution centre.
Up to 130 trucks and trains deliver approximately 5,000 – 6,000 pallets of empty bottles a day from all over Europe. Starting at the acceptance of empties the pallets are inserted into the conveyor systemloop via 13 feed-in stations.Monorail loops then transport the pallets into the production facility, which is connected to the logistics centre via a special bridge for themonorail.
The production facility is equipped with an eight-aisle inhouse rack that holds 6,000 pallet storage positions for single-Carlsberg calls on SSI Schaefer for high bay deep storing, intended as a buffer for empties of soft drinks. The mini high bay warehouse is also integrated into the conveyor loop for soft drinks and Schaefer’s compact cranes (SCC) provide storage and retrieval for up to 250 pallets per hour. Without the special design of SCC, the automated inhouse high bay warehouse constructed within an existing complex of buildingswould have proved difficult to achieve.
Unlike conventional storage and retrieval machines, these compact cranes are delivered as a completely preassembled component, from bottom carriage to mast stub and hoist platform, including the travelling drive and switch cabinet – enabling them to be transported and installed through access portals.
The two monorail loops also transport the cases and kegs, filled and palletised, on the production lines back to the logistics centre. SSI Schaefer installed a four kilometre track for the automatic transport system, its buffer and transfer stations and over 270 trolleys, that can achieve over 3,000 double cycles per hour, are located on the guide rails of the two loops.
The 9,000metre squared high bay warehouse has 18 aisles containing 70,000 storing positions for beverage pallets ready for dispatch, each of them designed for a maximum weight of 1,000 kilograms. The 18 storage and retrieval machines within the high bay warehouse are equipped with two telescopic forks each and achieve an hourly handling capacity of up to 700 pallets for storage and 800 pallets for retrieval processes.
Retrieval takes place based on orders. In addition to the allocation of entire pallets, there are twomaterial flow lines for order picking installed – one facilitates the fully automated compilation of mixed pallets and a pallet conveyor system supplies the separate sorting stations with retrieved pallets from the high bay warehouse. A partially automated, manual picking area is installed for the compilation of cases with nonmatching items. In total SSI Schaefer installed 2,000 conveyor system elements, roller conveyors, chain conveyors, liftingtransfer units, pivoting roller conveyors and shuttle vehicles within Carlsberg’s newdistribution centre.
