More than just racking
August 1st 2009 An eight-year programme of investment into Office Depots' Europe-wide distribution
network has reached a pinnacle in the completion of a highly automated facility near
Frankfurt. In addition to providing its PRO racking along with dynamic storage systems,
BITO played a central role in bringing the project in on time
At Office Depot, global providers of
office products, attention to service
has been central to the thinking
behind an eight-year programme of
investment into reconfiguring the
company's Europe-wide distribution
network.
The pinnacle of the programme is the
recently completed Grossostheim
distribution centre, 30km south of
Germany's financial centre, Frankfurt. Here
a €47 million facility, totalling 31,000m2
and offering 35,000 pallet locations, has
been equipped with BITO's PRO pallet
racking and dynamic carton flow racks
alongside pick-to-light technology,
automated mini-crane tote systems, 'A'
frame automated picking machines, 4.7km
of conveyors and two fully automated
sortation systems for despatch.
Remarkably, this highly automated
warehouse was completed within a year.
Achieving such a tight target required the
dedication and well-honed technical skills
of the materials handling turnkey
contractor BITO, working closely with Office
Depot's planning team.
"'We've been working with BITO since
2001 when they provided us with all the
carton live storage and pallet live storage
elements for a warehouse in Hamburg on a
subcontract basis," says, Bernd Schiel,
Office Depot's senior project manager and
European maintenance co-ordinator. "After
the success of that initial project they
became the preferred supplier for all future
projects, including facilities in Madrid,
Switzerland, Czech Republic and
Manchester in the UK."
Schiel continues: "After satisfying
ourselves on the quality and capabilities of
BITO being able to manage this type of
project we appointed the company to act as
the main contractor for all storage
elements in the system."
The new facility in Grossostheim was the
biggest single warehouse project in Europe
for Office Depot. "Many suppliers thought
the time scale was too tight," says Schiel
but BITO helped to ensure that the project
came in on time and on budget.
The new highly automated distribution
centre serves Austria, Southern Germany
and parts of Central Germany on a next day
delivery basis. It stretches over 31,000m2
and is divided into four halls. Goods arrive
on standard Euro pallets and are put away
in the bulk store, which occupies most of
Hall Four. Here 14 aisles of 15m high BITO
PRO racking are serviced by a fleet of manup
order pickers. BITO's modular PRO pallet
racking system provides a comprehensive
choice of upright and beam types for
precise adaptation to load requirements.
In Hall 3 half the hall is given over to
further bulk storage for larger and wider
goods, with BITO's PRO P6 racking
stretching up to 10m high and offering
2.7m wide bays. This area is for full case
and non-conveyable items such as laser
printers.
The order fulfilment process starts in Hall
3 with three carton erecting machines that
create six sizes of cartons over two
footprints. The cartons are conveyed
through to the main picking area in Hall 2
where they are diverted off to the required
picking loops.
In Hall 2 picking activity is arranged for
fast, medium and slow moving products.
Along the picking aisles, operatives pick
goods to cartons using a pick-to-light
system, taking items from the BITO SDS
dynamic carton flow racks in accordance to
instructions generated by the warehouse
management system. In aisles dedicated to
faster moving products the zones are
shorter so that picking operatives don't
have so far to move between picks. An 'A'
frame automated picking machine is used
for reasonably fast moving small sized pack
products.
'Split case' picking activity takes place
over four levels, with picked items -
normally full packs such as boxes of photo
copy paper - being placed onto a central
belt conveyor and moved to a shrink
wrapping machine for consolidation. Picked
goods move between levels via spiral
conveyors.
Cartons moving from the picking aisles
in Hall 2 are conveyed to a mezzanine level
where they either move on to case lid
application and dispatch, if complete, or
are conveyed to one of three pick-to-tote
stations where small but slow moving
items are picked and added to the cartons.
The pick-to-tote stations are fed by four
fully automated miniload storage and
retrieval units.
Completed orders get a final weight
check before being sealed and an address
label applied to the carton.
The system at Grossostheim is designed
to handle 15,000 orders over one and a
half shifts and enables a 9 pm cut off for
next day delivery to the customer. Bringing
the project in on-time and on-budget was a
tough call for Bernd Schiel's team and his
main materials handling contractor, BITO.
But Schiel was confident it could be done,
"our past experience with BITO had shown
that they had proven themselves an
extremely reliable partner." More articles from BITO Storage Systems Ltd: | 
