Management and control of the Hänel Lean-Lifts® and the manual store with viad@t
The AIV company works tirelessly on improving its internal processes and boosting performance. Recently the firm restructured and expanded its logistics and distribution centre in Heilbronn. In the process, Hänel integrated four Lean-Lifts® into the existing warehouse structure. Measuring 8.50 m high, these lifts utilize the full height of the warehouse and offer 360 square meters of storage area on a footprint of only 24 square meters. This saves a huge amount of precious floor space and makes optimal use of the existing warehouse.
WATCH NOW: AIV distribution centre in Heilbronn
For AIV this was a crucial advantage, enabling the available storage area to be increased by some 200 percent!
With the flexible and height-optimized storage in Hänel Lean-Lifts® up to 3,200 different products can be stocked depending on the inventory levels. Each day about 37,000 items pass through the dispatch warehouse. To enable the processes to be controlled more efficiently, AIV uses the viad@t warehouse management system from viastore systems in conjunction with its existing Navision enterprise resource planning system. New pick orders are transmitted to viad@t and can be processed in both the automated and the manual store. The Hänel Lean-Lifts® are operated via the program interface of viad@tWMS. A database keeps details of all the products including article number, article name and other properties. When new goods are put into storage, they are first identified with a barcode scanner and the inventory amount for this article is updated. Then the closest container with free storage space is automatically brought to the access point as quickly as possible.
If the same product is already stored in the lift at another location, this is taken into consideration during order picking so that the “older“ article is accessed by the system first (first in – first out). Thanks to the warehouse management software, the current inventory status can be viewed at any time. New products can be added to the system easily.
viad@tWMS also controls all the processes involved in retrieval. The employees can view and edit the various pick orders at the terminals. At the press of a button the control system automatically brings the container with the requested article to the access point. This means “goods to man”, not “man to goods”. To prevent pick errors, the box from which an item should be taken is identified in the graphical container overview of viad@tWMS. The Hänel Pick-o-Light® system also helps to make picking faster and more reliable by shining a red LED onto the requested article.
This has further improved process reliability!
The four Hänel Lean-Lifts® are operated in parallel by two employees. By using advanced storage systems from Hänel in conjunction with high-performance warehouse management software from viastore systems, the company has been able to increase its order picking performance to up to 180 picks per person per hour, in contrast to a conventional order picking warehouse.
Further convincing benefits are faster goods delivery, improved stock control, minimized pick errors and shorter order processing times.
Four Hänel Lean-Lifts
