ing over the pallet’s edges that could jam
up the automated equipment. At the same
time, the pallets are weighed and compared with the target weight calculated
during the goods-in process. Products in
the MPS are used to replenish goods in the
picking and repacking operations.
Repacking represents a huge part of the
work done in Ennepetal, as 80 percent
of parts received must be repacked into
boxes or bags imprinted with one of the
brands of the bilstein group before they
can ship to customers. These include the
febi, SWAG, and Blue Print brands. About
half of the facility’s 500 employees work in
repackaging areas, handling about 100,000
individual parts each day. The Witron
WMS now coordinates all of the repacking operations—a task that previously was
carried out using only paper.
Although some repacked items go back
onto pallets, most of the goods are placed
into totes for transport to the facility’s
tote storage miniload systems that eventually feed picking areas. The miniloads
include the site’s original 2005 “trial” OPS
system as well as a newer OPS tote system
installed in 2008 that can accommodate
100,000 totes. The second OPS system was
further expanded in 2012 to hold an additional 90,000 totes.
“We do not differentiate between the
old and new or the original and new mini-
load system,” says Wortmann. “For us, it
is one big miniload system. Even if they
are separated physically by a wall, logically
they are ‘one’ OPS system.”
All together, an impressive number of
totes—nearly 230,000—can be stored in
the OPS system. These are arranged along
23 aisles featuring double-deep storage.
A crane in each aisle handles putaway
and retrieval of the totes. Conveyors con-
nect the original and new sections of the
OPS, so that totes can be easily exchanged
between the different parts of the system.
About 90 percent of the filled totes in
the OPS contain items that have been
repacked and are now ready for sale. The
remainder hold pieces that are used to
build kits.
CAREFUL KITTING
Among the activities carried out in the
repack operation is kitting, a process
the performance we require in our
business,” he says.
The entire system was completed
in phases from 2005 until 2014 and
represents an investment of more
than 95 million euros (US$103.7
million). Witron designed and
installed the automated system,
which includes a high-bay automated pallet storage system, miniload tote storage, goods-to-person
picking systems, packing stations,
2,700 meters ( 8,858 feet) of tote
conveyors, 2,000 meters ( 6,562 feet)
of pallet conveyors, and the warehouse management software
(WMS) that ties it all together.
The WMS is integrated with febi
bilstein’s SAP enterprise resource
planning system.
MOVING PARTS
The Ennepetal logistics center holds
approximately 67 million euros
(US$73 million) worth of prod-
ucts. Much of this inventory is now
housed in the automated storage
and retrieval systems, which include
both miniload tote storage and pal-
let storage.
Vendors ship goods to Ennepetal
in bulk, packed in wooden crates
and corrugated boxes on pallets.
Upon arrival, these bulk shipments
are checked for quantity and quality, and moved into the 61,484
locations of the Witron-supplied
Module Picking System (MPS),
though some small-quantity items
are placed directly into the miniload
OPS.
The MPS is basically an automated pallet storage and retrieval
system with 11 aisles served by a
stacker crane in each aisle. The system uses only Euro-pallets that are
capable of handling 2,000 pounds
each. A dimensioning system measures loads before they enter storage
to assure that there’s nothing hang-
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