Emlichheim/ Borgholzhausen, January 31, 2025 – Since January 6, the construction of the logistics halls of Emsland-Stärke GmbH on Rudolf-Diesel-Straße in Emlichheim (Lower Saxony) has been in full swing. The symbolic groundbreaking took place on January 15. In the third quarter of 2026, a new automated high-bay warehouse for starch products made from potatoes and peas will go into operation in the Emsland Group's "Gewerbegebiet Nord" industrial park, centralizing many storage locations.
The hall is scheduled for completion by the end of 2025, after which the interior will follow. With a Satellite® storage system in the new building, which is 200 meters long, 70 meters wide and 27 meters high, the intralogistics automation specialist Westfalia Technologies GmbH & Co. KG from Borgholzhausen (North Rhine-Westphalia) is expanding the 28,000 pallet spaces in the existing logistics halls by 52,000 spaces. According to the Emsland Group, it is investing around 38 million euros.
As a general contractor, manufacturer and system integrator, Westfalia implements warehouse and conveyor technology, control systems, pallet wrappers and software - Westfalia's Savanna.NET® Warehouse Execution System provides warehouse management and material flow control and links it to all upstream systems.
Four storage and retrieval machines (SRMs), each with a Satellite® load handling device for pair transport, provide fully automated, highly compact storage of sacks and big bags on pallets in the normal temperature warehouse - on 11 levels in four blocks. 3500 tons of steel are used in the racking system. For maximum access redundancy, two SRMs run on one rail per aisle.
An electric floor conveyor with 23 vehicles transports the load units weighing more than one ton from production to the warehouse and the shipping area; roller conveyors connect the floor conveyor with the infeed and outfeed points of the warehouse aisles. "The vehicles transport the pallets from production to the respective SRM and from the respective SRM to the correct shipping lane in an energy-saving, efficient and gentle manner," explains Fabian Spitz of Sales Technologies & Systems. "Very high throughput rates are possible.
The aim of the new facility is to achieve sustainable growth without the need for additional specialist staff and to make the logistics site, which was established in 1997, fit for the future: Until now, goods had to be temporarily stored at additional rented locations. "With the new hall, we want to save around 2,200 additional truck trips and 110,000 kilometers per year, with the corresponding CO2 emissions and rental and transportation costs," says Herbert Zwartscholten, head of logistics at the Emlichheim site: "By transporting the pallets on conveyor belts and an electric floor conveyor, we are also minimizing the disturbances that can cause the goods on the pallets to shift and increasing the quality of the packed pallets.“
Satellite® technology also ensures fast, gentle, safe, and trouble-free storage operations: the Satellites and triple rail profiles provide additional support for pallets. They are designed for high pallet weights, long product life and maximum system availability. Westfalia has been developing Satellite technology in close cooperation with the food, beverage and packaging industries since 1981, and has developed additional designs for various industries over the past decades.
Despite tripling the storage capacity, the logistics team does not have to grow. The automation of the warehouse also offers the gentle fire protection option of inertization. The oxygen content in the high-bay warehouse is reduced to 14.2 percent, which means that there is a shortage of oxygen in the event of a fire. To facilitate maintenance in the oxygen-reduced environment, the SRMs are equipped with service lifts that provide easy access to all levels.
The overall project manager, Arne Gövert, Head of Technology at the Emsland Group, is convinced by the solution provided by the SME partner Westfalia Technologies: "We deliberately chose Westfalia for our project to build a new high-bay warehouse. The decisive factor was the combination of innovative technology and a customized solution that is optimally tailored to our requirements."
"We were particularly impressed by Westfalia's high in-house production depth, which guarantees reliable response times. Proximity also played a decisive role, as it enables close coordination and short personal contacts. From a technical point of view, we were particularly impressed by the solution with the triple-rail support and the connected rack entry vehicle, which provide additional stability and efficiency in our storage system. We look forward to implementing the project and continuing our successful cooperation."
