VAHLE puts fully automated honeycomb warehouse into operation

The flexible honeycomb system stores goods with a length of over six meters and a weight of up to three tons per interchangeable cassette in the 330 honeycombs. The optimized material flow takes place via an automatic single-table storage and retrieval unit directly to the assembly stations. VAHLE supplied all the components for energy and data transmission and positioning itself.

"This innovative production site is an expression of VAHLE's efficiency. It enables us to serve the individual wishes and requirements of our customers even better," says Henning Stelte, Head of Operations at Paul Vahle GmbH & Co KG, explaining the restructuring at the Kamen headquarters. Following the commissioning of the automated small parts warehouse last year, the company has now invested a seven-figure sum in the new long goods honeycomb warehouse. "With the implemented LEAN concept, we are digitizing, networking and streamlining our processes and can thus make our material flow and the flow of goods to our customers more efficient," says Stelte.

The fehr Lagerlogistik AG system has 330 storage locations with a honeycomb length of up to 6.4 meters, in each of which up to three tons can be stored. The heart of the system is the automated storage and retrieval machine (AS/RS), which moves the goods to their respective honeycomb at a speed of up to 120 meters per minute once they have been stored. As soon as an employee requests production material, the SRM removes the entire storage cassette and transports it to the assembly station. There, the required quantity is removed before the rack is transported back to its storage location. Fully automatic order-based control is provided by the connection to VAHLE's ERP system. Holger von der Heyde, the project manager responsible for Kaizen and process improvement at VAHLE, outlines the benefits: "We are streamlining our work processes and increasing material availability in production. In line with the "material to man" principle, employees can concentrate on purely value-adding steps."

In order to integrate the new system into the existing infrastructure, extensive foundation work was carried out in the existing 2,500 square meter production hall and a technical infrastructure designed for sustainability was installed. Innovative equipment including robot-supported production lines enable an efficient material flow. "The system also increases occupational safety in the hall, as additional forklift and crane movements are largely eliminated," says the project manager. The hall floor is also color-coded to clearly distinguish transport routes and production areas. Goods are delivered via a newly built extension of around 100 square meters. "This allows us to concentrate the handling of long goods in just one area and to equalize the activity on the company premises," explains von der Heyde.

The energy and data transfer as well as absolute positioning in the entire honeycomb warehouse is carried out with in-house VAHLE products. It is supplied with energy by the VKS10 conductor rail, in whose profile the APOS Magnetic gliding positioning system is also installed, which guarantees positioning of the stacker crane with millimeter precision. Interference-free communication takes place via the SMGM vCOM data transmission system integrated into the HRL profile. This combination, installed for the first time in a honeycomb warehouse, enables completely new application scenarios for smart logistics solutions, such as the digital networking of different parts of the system and the implementation of multiple live video streams of different processes.

The honeycomb warehouse will therefore also serve as an operational exhibition space for the system provider for mobile industrial applications, as VAHLE Managing Director Achim Dries explains: "Our customers can get an impression of the functional scope of our products here on site." For this purpose, the facility is equipped with cameras that transmit live images to a screen in the showroom. VAHLE sees the cooperation with fehr as a promising symbiosis for the development of modern, state-of-the-art logistics centers.