measured and inspected to make sure that they meet the
size and quality standards for pallets used within the system. Occasionally, products arrive in the staging area either
without pallets or loaded onto pallets that aren’t suitable
for use in the AS/RS (although they might be perfectly adequate for shipping). These are loaded onto slave pallets for
their sojourn in the AS/RS. The slave pallets are reserved for
internal use and remain in the facility.
A chain conveyor then transports the pallets to the AS/RS,
which is contained within the newly constructed rack-sup-ported high-bay freezer building. The temperature in the
high bay is maintained at minus 24 degrees Celsius (minus
11 degrees Fahrenheit), so pallets pass through an air lock
first in order to transition to the ultra-chilled environment.
To reduce the risk of fire, a low oxygen level is maintained
in the racking.
The AS/RS contains five aisles that are 93 meters (305
feet) long. Eleven levels of deep-lane storage racks are
arrayed along the aisles and stand 32 meters (105 feet) high.
The racks are designed to hold 32,000 Euro pallets (a Euro
pallet measures 800 by 1,200 millimeters—about 31. 5 by
47. 2 inches). The system is also designed to accommodate
wider industrial-sized pallets that measure 1,000 by 1,200
millimeters (approximately 39. 4 by 47. 2 inches). It can hold
25,600 of the larger pallets.
The deep-lane system stores pallets packed tightly together in long rows that run perpendicular to the aisles.
Mydibel’s system can hold 11 Euro pallets in each lane.
Most of the racks (with the exception of those on the far left
and far right) allow for pallets to be accessed from either of
the adjacent aisles. In most cases, each lane holds pallets of a
single SKU from the same production batch, with one aisle
used for depositing pallets and the adjacent aisle used for
removing them. This helps assure that in most instances,
