SECTORS

An innovative automated warehouse in the precision engineering industry

Problem
The company with headquarters in Brendola is not exclusively specialized in solutions for precision mechanics but is ready to concretize its customers ideas and projects by providing customized products. In 2006, a new warehouse was imagined and, consequently, a supply chain restyling. On the one hand, storage volumes needed to be increased in the old warehouse, on the other hand, the company wanted to introduce an automated solution to integrate added value throughout the supply chain to also benefit the end customer.

Solution
Automha created a Booster automatic warehouse interlocked by stacker cranes, which provides the drawers handling for small parts storage, with a capacity of more than 4,800 locations, equal to more than 240 tons of goods. Input and picking bays placed on more levels allow for the retrieval of goods but also the performance of any finishing operations, assembly, and quality control.

The Vitesse headquarters develops around the self-supporting warehouse, one that becomes the center of all activities. Customer service is critical to Vitesse and so is higher performance in a very competitive industry. Therefore, immediate response and quality of service were the top themes around which Automha built its solution. These specific requirements have led to the study of different picking/refilling bays in terms of mechanical structure, with accumulation for levies to sequentially dial customer orders, to drawer extraction for picking on high rotation managed by a display. The bays are allocated on two different levels. The ground floor is focused on the sampling operations for customer order handling: there we designed two recirculating bays and 3 display-managed picking areas with quick drawer extractors for a total of 15 positions. On the first floor, where quality control and small operations are performed, we provided – in addition to the classic in/out bays – 12 drawer picking stations.

Advantages
The automation implemented has generated important space savings, but also introduced a completely different way of working, one that is more flexible and precise, with better traceability of flows and processes. “It is a smart warehouse that allows us at all times to have an accurate picture of stocks and ongoing processes. Inanition evolves over time based on the activity carried out. According to the rotations, the references are self-organizing to allocate the goods in the most efficient way possible, thereby reducing time and consumption”.