ukwa 2 cover - United Kingdom Warehousing Association

38 Cover Story
ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE
Picking and sorting solutions
for the food & beverage sector
By Craig Rollason, Head of Sales & Marketing, KNAPP UK Ltd
The food and beverage industries are not
only important sectors serving huge markets,
they are also special in terms of their
handling needs. They require rapid distribution,
tracking of expiry dates and the capacity to
accommodate seasonal peaks. KNAPP has considerable
experience in designing highly efficient,
automated logistics systems for these
demanding markets.
Total warehouse management
KNAPP’s KiSoft WMS (warehouse management
system) has recently been installed by the rapidly
expanding Slovenian supermarket group,
TUS. At the company’s distribution centre in
Celje, the WMS optimises all warehouse
processes. Various person-to-goods picking solutions – including
pick-by-voice, pick-to-light and RF picking – are employed,
in order to maximise efficiency in each warehouse area. For
fresh and chilled products, KNAPP’s high-performance OSR
shuttle system is integrated into the workflow and guarantees
high throughput at its three goods-to-person picking stations.
Internal transport is supported by KNAPP’s KiSoft AUTOMOVE,
by which standard forklifts are equipped with laser navigation.
Each truck can then undertake long driving tasks on its own,
but escort the picker automatically to the required pick locations,
ensuring maximum staff availability for picking. The
material flow from the dispatch ramp to the customer is controlled
by KiSoft Track&Trace, including delivery control, load
carrier tracing and returns handling.
Another company that has recently ordered KNAPP’s KiSoft
WMS is HAVI Logistics, a leading global food service distribution
provider serving companies including McDonald’s, BP
and IKEA. In a pilot project, KiSoft WMS will be installed in
two of HAVI’s six distribution centres in Germany, before
being rolled out to 44 locations in Europe within three years.
Batch-tracking
In the beverage sector, KNAPP offers expertise in three key
areas: the management of full crates, order picking and the
sorting and management of empties. Getränke-Industrie
Hamburg (GIH) is one of nine licence holders for the Coca-Cola
Company in Germany. When GIH wanted a batch-tracking system
that would allow logistics operations to be optimised, KNAPP
was appointed to implement software-supported block storage
management and voice-controlled, manual order picking.
KNAPP implemented its KiSoft WMS and KiSoft VOICE picking
solution, together with its G-CONTROL and G-TRACK forklift
management systems. The WMS is responsible for strategies
such as FIFO (first in, first out), LIFO (last in, first out), product
expiry date management and prioritisation. KiSoft WMS also
optimises order sequencing and consolidation, supports batch
management in line with the relevant EU directive and is linked
to Coca-Cola’s ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.
Forklift management
At the GIH site, data is forwarded
to the G-CONTROL
forklift management system
to optimise the transport
routes in the warehouse. Not
only does the system know
where every lift truck is located
at any precise moment, it
allocates transport orders to
the nearest available truck,
ensuring maximum efficiency.
G-TRACK records all forklift
pallet movements and
reports them to KiSoft WMS
and G-CONTROL, forwarding
the unique pallet ID numbers and their physical and logical
positions. Thus, all stock movements – as well as any
cases of breakage, theft or damage – are recorded by the system.
Voice-directed picking
The KiSoft VOICE system allows GIH to perform voice-controlled
order picking, used mostly for smaller products such as
individual containers. Picking staff are guided, via a headset,
from one picking location to the next, with the shortest routes
calculated. With no need for paperwork or an RF scanner,
both hands are free for picking. Voice systems offer up to 35%
increase in picking performance, up to 35% reduction in forklift
activity and a return on investment of generally less than
12 months.
Sorting of empties
The German firm H. Leiter GmbH handles the sorting of empties
for InBev Deutschland, a leading export brewery and part
of the Interbrew Group. When InBev planned to upgrade its
empties sorting process, KNAPP was contracted to install a
fully automated bottle recognition and sortation system.
Handling 4,200 crates per hour, the destackers/stackers
remove individual crates from pallets and stack individual
crates onto pallets. To ensure gentle transport of crates, the
site’s existing stainless steel conveyor was replaced with
KNAPP’s low-impact, accumulating roller
conveyor, resulting in a quiet operation and
reduced crate wear. KNAPP also installed
RECOP intelligent sorting robots to transform
unsorted crates into crates containing a single
type of bottle, replacing the 'odd' bottles
with ones of the correct type.
KNAPP UK Ltd
Long Crendon, Bucks HP18 9EQ
Tel: 01844 202149
www.knapp.com
February 2010
www.ukwa.org.uk