Eliminating downtime
October 1st 2010 New conveyor systems prove key
component for revamped warehouse
When Benetton wanted to redesign its automated
warehouse in Treviso, northern Italy optimising
existing volumes, increasing storage capacity, boosting
handling flexibility and managing large and small loading units
(LUs) in a continuous cycle were key priorities.
System Logistics provided new shelving units and new high
performance stacker cranes featuring integrated energy recovery,
positioning and control systems, optical encoders and closed
loop axis management, as well as radio-frequency and infrared
communication systems.
To eliminate downtime, the number of loading bays was
reduced to six and a fast conveyor system (sorter) was designed
to connect the existing warehouses to each bay (5000 packs/hour
speed).
New conveyor systems between the order preparation
departments and the new warehouses were designed and
connected to the LUs coming from abroad, with communication
managed in real time. Personalised programmes at the control
level exclude the possibility of any type of shipping error.
The storage of the LUs is carried out in five areas, with stacker
cranes operating in each of these sectors able to pick up and
deposit boxes in their shelves with dimensions of 160m long and
20m high. The width of the aisles is reduced to enable space
saving.
The storage is specific to the size of the LU and this makes it
possible to maximise the volumes used. The big boxes are stored
vertically to preserve the quality of the hanging garments. Each
pack is a customer order personalised by a barcode identification
label, with handling data stored by a sophisticated control
system. The storage incoming and outgoing areas are on various
levels of height and guarantee an hourly handling capacity of
5000 packs.
The warehouse has a total capacity of 750,000 LUs including
small and big boxes; each pack can be picked in less than one
minute. Each loading bay can work on two different vehicles in
order to maximise operator efficiency, eliminating the downtime
for single vehicles loading and departing, opening the tailboards
and preparing the loading area. Loading is carried out taking into
consideration all the trips to be made and their composition.
Using a last-in / first-out philosophy, the facility operates in
synch with the requirements of the customer.
The automation of the logistic processes achieved the objective
of complete integration of the production cycle, from the
customer order to packing and shipping, providing a notable
improvement in distribution efficiency, with the capacity to ship
over two million garments a
day. IMHX Stand 18N154
Technical data
Incoming Area
Capacity 4500 LU/hour
- 2 automatic conveyor systems for small and big
boxes, length 1400m in tunnel
- 3 entrances to the lines from the yards
Box warehouse
- LU: Cardboard boxes from 0.5 to 40kg. Dimensions: 600x400 x h
from 100 to 500mm
- 32 stacker cranes with 4 box capacity h=20m
- 32 incoming bays / 32 outgoing bays
- Handling capacity: 4500 LU incoming/hour, 4500 LU
outgoing/hour
Big box warehouse
- LU: Cardboard boxes from 0.5 to 40kg. dimensions: 600x400xh
from 500 to 1650mm
- 14 stacker cranes with 2 box capacity h=20m
- 14 incoming bays / 14 outgoing bays
- Handling capacity: 1200 LU incoming/hour, 1200 LU
outgoing/hour
Shipping Area
Capacity: 5400 LU/hour
- 20 automatic printing and labelling systems
- 10 infeeds to the sorter
- 1 plate sorting system
- Capacity 5400 LU/hour
- 6 Vehicle loading bays with capacity 900 packs/hour each
HSS Oct'10 80+4pp 12/10/10 12:24 Page 36 More articles from System Logistics (Incorporating Diamond Phoenix ): | 
