SSI Schäfer made a wise decision to make its storage systems scalable. In the future, SSI will support a rapidly growing defense technology supplier with quickly implementable intralogistics solutions, ranging from racking systems, mezzanine floors, and conveyor technology to automated systems like the RackBot Eco.
SSI Schäfer's customer develops and produces complex defense systems in various sectors at several European locations. Numerous suppliers are integrated into the value chain. The company has been on a steady growth trajectory for years. With the rapidly increasing production volumes, the importance of efficient and reliable warehouse logistics is also growing – particularly in production supply, where master data in the five- to six-figure range needs to be managed.
Change of strategy
For a long time, manual solutions were used. In 2023, the strategy changed: Intralogistics processes are to be automated or semi-automated as soon as this becomes economically viable. The goal is to increase scalability in order to meet rising market demand promptly. Given the current threat landscape, the defense industry has little time.
“Getting everything from a single source and having consistent, reliable contacts is one of the crucial success factors, especially in the defense sector,” emphasizes Florian Höller, Project Sales at SSI Schäfer. Anything else would be virtually impossible, if only for compliance reasons, Höller explains. Reliability is also evident in the IT sector. “Here, we have successfully demonstrated that we meet the industry's stringent requirements for cybersecurity and data protection.”
By far the largest project to date involved the construction of a new hall, for which SSI Schäfer developed a continuous intralogistics layout and implemented it on schedule within ten months.
The project developers were able to pick up speed right from the design phase. This was because the client limited themselves to specifying only the processes and the plant's capacity. How and with which technologies the production supply should be managed was left entirely up to the experts at SSI Schäfer.
“The extent to which customers benefit from such an open tender process was demonstrated, for example, in the design of the automated small parts warehouse (AS/RS),” says Höller: “Traditionally, when people think of AS/RS, they think of automated warehouses with rail-guided storage and retrieval machines. However, the achievable aisle lengths would have been far too short to utilize such a system economically. Especially since the customer only needed 100 double cycles per hour in the first phase.”
After thorough evaluation, the deployment of the RackBot System Eco with six RackBots was deemed the most economically viable option. These robots handle all storage and retrieval processes in the small parts warehouse completely autonomously. In addition to the mobile robots, the necessary racking and conveyor technology, as well as the containers, are also part of the fully integrated RackBot solution.
Maximum availability
In this robot-based system, every RackBot has access to every container. The bots operate as an intelligent swarm, which is particularly helpful for the warehouse in exceptional situations. For example, if one robot fails, the other devices can take over its tasks at any time. This full roaming capability maximizes the availability of the entire system.
The small parts warehouse currently has approximately 45,000 ESD-compliant Euro containers, which can be subdivided into up to eight compartments. This gives the customer sufficient flexibility to store their total of 130,000 items precisely. The switch to the layout developed by SSI Schäfer resulted in significant efficiency gains, as previously almost all items were stored in specific containers with varying dimensions.
In IT, too, one of the customer's key objectives was to minimize the number of systems. "Against this backdrop, we focused on integrating the control of the entire RackBot solution and the conveyor technology directly into the customer's ERP system," explains Höller. Order management and inventory control are now managed directly from the SAP S4/HANA business software, which the defense technology provider uses company-wide.
A similarly streamlined integration approach is also evident in the connection of the SSI Logimat storage lifts. Here, too, the transport orders are controlled directly from the SAP system and transmitted via an interface to the respective storage lift, which derives its travel commands and tray movements from the ERP data.
Flexible IT integration
The customer currently has 12 of these lift solutions in operation or is in the process of implementing them. For example, in the aforementioned new hall, they complement the small parts warehouse and a pallet racking system, which SSI Schäfer also constructed there, including a multi-tier shelving system.
The customer uses the SSI Logimat vertical lift system wherever small and very small parts need to be stored and picked in a space-saving manner. It achieves a high degree of storage density, picking accuracy, and work efficiency. Furthermore, it benefits from short delivery and commissioning times – on average, it takes 10 to 15 weeks from order placement to go-live.
Customers achieve additional time savings in use cases that don't require an ERP connection. For example, in a training workshop, the stored parts remain on-site, eliminating the need for material postings in the SAP system. Instead, SSI Schäfer provides the free warehouse management system LOGIONE, enabling stand-alone operation of the storage lift. Besides the training workshop, this operating option is currently used in three other applications.
