Paper rolls, corrugated formatted and finished goods leave these warehouses in unchanged high quality. The material-friendly, compact automated Satellite® storage system from intralogistics specialist Westfalia Logistics Solutions Europe continues to impress the corrugated board and packaging industry 40 years after its invention.
The key technology - the Satellite® - is customized according to requirements. This results in a range of variants for multi-deep compact storage systems which is rare on the market. The software and hardware, drives, sensors, and control technology are continuously updated to the latest technological standards. They represent the state of the art in efficiency and resource conservation. This pays off in terms of corporate goals. After all, sustainability is more in demand today than ever before, but at the same time it should cost as little as possible.
The heart of technology: The Satellite®
"Corrugated board is sensitive when unprocessed," says Stephan Bruns, Sales Director Technologies and Systems at Westfalia, describing a particular requirement of the corrugated board industry for automated storage systems and intermediate storage. Moist and warm format goods in particular are susceptible to damage, he says. "We solve this challenge by using lifting satellites, complete platforms for maximum gentle material handling during transport. We use widened satellite rails to deposit palletless corrugated stacks on the rack."
For corrugated products, massive logistics bundling can decisively reduce costs. For example, in production, when small batch sizes are made possible without additional setup times or time-shifted orders. Here, too, satellite technology plays to its strengths.
"The Satellite® is a load handling device designed for multiple-deep storage of different load carriers as well as multiple-deep palletless storage," says Bruns. "The storage channels can be significantly deeper than would be possible with telescopic forks, for example. We realize intermediate storage and finished goods storage of 40 meters in height and more. The space utilization rate of up to 95% results in maximum capacity on a minimum footprint." This makes it possible to implement particularly narrow storage cuts close to the production line, and to avoid unnecessary travel distances or space consumption.
"A single storage and retrieval machine (SRM) serves two multi-deep blocks, which creates additional storage space," says Bruns. Fewer units on standby reduce energy requirements. Travel and transfer speeds at interfaces are timed so precisely that there are no unnecessary waiting times or standbys. The line-efficient system stores, repositions and retrieves combined without "idling".
Due to the precise guidance of the satellites, there are only very small tolerances in the channels. This creates high reliability and prevents malfunctions, damage, and material waste. "At the same time, the ratio between footprint and storage capacity remains particularly favourable. And our satellites build low and always place load units at the same depth, regardless of channel depth." Even with many rack levels, this means no valuable centimetres are lost, according to the sales manager.
Satellite® warehouses allow flexible, mixed channel assignment for small, medium, and large formats. For large or cross-stacked stacks, several adjacent satellites enter the channel. If a warehouse has at least two aisles, the result is a flexible middle block without separation in the centre of the block - the Westfalia middle block. "Storage depths can then be dynamically and individually divided there for each individual channel. In addition, this provides an emergency strategy," Stephan Bruns emphasizes. "If one of the SRMs is being serviced or fails, the second SRM can serve and empty each aisle in the middle block.“
The heart of software: Savanna.NET®
As a Warehouse Execution System, Savanna.NET® handles both material flow control and warehouse management in many industries. "Our software eliminates the need for stand-alone solutions and can be adapted to any level of complexity and automation through modules," says Christian Goltermann, Sales Manager Software & IT. "In the corrugated industry, it controls and manages our raw material, intermediate and finished goods warehouses with an interface to the conveyor systems widely used there." Savanna® can be integrated into all common virtual environments and seamlessly connected to the ERP.
At the same time, this all-in-one software reduces maintenance costs that can arise from several software programs communicating with each other: "Thanks to Savanna`s lifecycle management, Savanna® can be kept technologically up-to-date at all times and therefore does not age. With the intuitive user interface, both manual warehouses and automated logistics systems can be managed and controlled," continues Goltermann.
Savanna®, in conjunction with the company's own storage and retrieval machines, enables optimum storage and retrieval of load units (SUs). Depending on the SU size, the possibilities of single to multiple transports are used. "Storage is also multidimensional depending on the SU size. Particularly in combination with the Westfalia middle block, this results in optimum utilization of space," says Christian Goltermann, describing a unique selling point.
At the same time, this system creates complete transparency in administration and strategic planning, in operative warehouse operations via handhelds or hand-held on-site panels, and for third-party customers, who can use the data themselves for optimal logistics planning via an interface.
Even away from the software, technological progress brings measurable improvements in new or modernized automated high-bay warehouses for corrugated board and packaging. Today, modern drive technology allows energy to be stored or fed back, either into the supply network or into energy storage units directly on the vehicle. Storage capacitors in the DC link provide a large part of the necessary power peaks. Rotational energy and capacitor storage also ensure system operation for drives, motor brakes and control in the event of power failures.
Modern control systems coordinate the travel and lifting axes of a storage and retrieval machine, matching the speed, start and braking times of the axes to each other in an energy-saving and material-saving manner. The axis with the shorter travel distance travels more slowly or starts later. Energy from braking the axle or lowering the load is thus made available to the other axle. If fewer orders are pending for a vehicle, it travels more slowly overall, thus reducing wear and making it more economical.
Modern sensor systems make storage processes more flexible and optimize them. Whereas for a long-time signal transmitter in the motors and photoelectric sensors were used for distance measurement and coarse positioning, today distance lasers in the chassis, among other things, take over the coarse positioning and camera-based sensors the fine positioning of the compartments. This increases storage speed and simplifies the flexible storage of different formats in a single storage channel. Today, camera systems with ring buffer directly on the camera also monitor the processes several times. Images can be called up immediately in the event of a malfunction, faults can be rectified more quickly, and causes can be analysed more easily.
Safety technology is also moving with the times and is already integrated in application inverters for closed-loop and open-loop control: Inputs, outputs, stop functions, brake control, positioning, and communication thus function reliably where man and machine work together. The still common muting technology for personnel access protection at interfaces to the automated system reaches its limits with flexible goods widths, changing positioning on pallets or the conveyor. "Gaps" can occur next to the load units in which people could theoretically walk along. A new access guard, which Westfalia also offers in its systems, creates a vertical protective field by means of two safety laser scanners. This dynamically releases a "window" adapted to the passing load unit and closes it again immediately.
Improved materials result in durable and low-wear systems. Components subject to particularly high stress are detected by the continuous service and maintenance operations offered by Westfalia and critical components are reordered at an early stage. This means that unscheduled system downtimes can be avoided - a considerable advantage in tightly scheduled corrugated board production.
"We are committed to fine-tuning to customer requirements and reliability," emphasizes Stephan Bruns. "The multiple-deep warehouses are designed to reduce costs, space and energy consumption, but also material waste and the CO2 emissions caused by superfluous transport routes and locations. Ultimately, green, and economical logistics begin in your own corrugated board warehouse.“
