AutoStore® small parts warehouse with connected conveyor system for Richter + Frenzel in Reichertshofen

For more than 120 years Richter + Frenzel has been the wholesale specialist for sanitary and building technology. 3,500 employees at 170 locations in Germany guarantee competent consultancy and planning with products from over 1,800 manufacturers. The new logistics centre at the Reichertshofen site supplies the company's branches and craft businesses. The central element of this greenfield project is a fully automated warehouse for the storage and picking of small parts. Hörmann Logistik convinced with its intralogistics concept, which includes an AutoStore® small parts warehouse with connected conveyor technology for order picking and palletising, and received the order.

Concept

The AutoStore® will be integrated into a new building The workstations for incoming and outgoing goods and picking are on the opposite side of the AutoStore® system according to the flow of goods.

Hörmann Logistik performed the planning for the tailor-made AutoStore system for Richter + Frenzel using system simulations with original data in real time. This also resulted in the recommendation for batch formation at goods issue/picking. The customer requirements, together with the simulation results, led to a system configuration with 45 robots, 50,000 bins on 16 levels and corresponding workstation modules.

The AutoStore® system consists of an entirely covered aluminium grid. Within the grid, stacks of 16 bins each stand directly on the hall floor. The battery-powered, autonomous robots move on the grid rail system above the bin stacks. They pick up the bins, re-sort them as required and serve for supply and disposal of the workstations.

The maximum total weight of the 649 mm x 449 mm x 330 mm (L x W x H) bin is 35 kg with a net load of around 30 kg. A weighing unit at the ports prevents exceeding the maximum weight.

In order to fill the bins with optimized quantities, Hörmann Logistik implemented a self-learning system for weight and volume data. Each compartment of a bin (1/4, 1/2 or 1/1 bin) may only contain identical articles of the same nature.

The Hörmann Logistik warehouse management system HiLIS AS logs the quantities successfully stored in a bin / subdivision and thus approaches the maximum bin filling quantities.

Four pairs of wheels move the robots in two directions. Their geometry allows them to reach any position in the grid at a speed of 3.1 m/s. They communicate via WLAN with the AutoStore control system, which assigns the transport orders to the individual robots. If the order load is low or the battery capacity is too low, the robots drive automatically to one of the charging stations located at the edge of the grid. The AutoStore control is located on the adjacent service platform.

HiLIS AS, the warehouse management and control system specially designed for AutoStore®, controls the system. AutoStore® "only" knows the bin number in the system, but not its contents. The higher-level HiLIS AS warehouse management and control system knows the contents of each bin, manages and controls the AutoStore® system and implements all logistical processes including interfaces to the ERP system. The understandable, graphical user interface of HiLIS AS provides clear working and picking instructions via touch screen. In addition, HiLIS AS supports permanent inventory processes, empty bin insertion, status dialogues, special access to the bins and much more.

The new AutoStore® intralogistics solution at Richter + Frenzel was installed starting in November 2018 and went into operation in summer 2019.