nobilia invested several million Euro in a new, 8,700 m2 logistics centre in Verl. With the new construction at the company head office, the kitchen manufacturer intends to increase the level of automation in logistics and to improve the picking quality. The logistics system will perform warehousing and picking of pallet goods and small parts for the production of around 600,000 kitchens per year. It is planned to go into operation in the summer of 2016. Unitechnik is implementing a large part of the project: We are responsible for planning and implementation of the automated high rack warehouse (HRW) and the central small parts warehouse. The latter is implemented as a shuttle system and uses the UniWare warehouse management system to manage the stock locations. The shuttles are capable of up to 1,600 stock movements per hour. The high throughput is possible thanks to the special UniWare warehouse strategies: They are selected so that picking is performed in a time and path optimized manner. UniWare is used in the HRW as a material flow calculator and for system visualization. The entire inventory management system is controlled by SAP EWM.
