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Automated high-tech warehouse: Kaufland moves pallets autonomously
What the logistics world of tomorrow will look like can already be seen today in Geisenfeld, Bavaria. After more than three years of extensive expansion and a successful ramp-up phase, the warehouse processes at Kaufland's logistics center have largely been fully automated since September.
Spread over a height of 30 meters, small shuttle vehicles glide fully automatically along their long tracks and store and retrieve goods. Robot arms pack pallets as required for around 125 Kaufland stores in southern Germany in a constantly changing cycle. As if by magic, autonomous transport units that resemble moving telephone booths transport picked pallets to the outgoing goods area.
With the newly commissioned high-bay warehouse, capacities can be increased without using up additional space, which is often no longer available. At the same time, delivery reliability is increased.
“You don't transform a logistics location overnight. That's why we made the conscious decision years ago to transform our site in Geisenfeld into an almost fully automated high-tech warehouse. The technology and robotics have been developed and integrated on a site-specific basis. We have gradually introduced the new technologies in the individual warehouse sections over the past few years. Geisenfeld is now home to one of the most modern logistics centers in the German food retail sector,” says Konrad Ott, Project Manager Automation Geisenfeld.
Automated Order Picking
In the food area, up to 185,000 packages are picked automatically. This means that after delivery, the pallets are automatically placed in the high-bay warehouse by storage and retrieval machines and stored there until the goods are needed. Depalletizing is also largely automated. Twelve robot gripper arms then assemble the pallets for each individual store. They arrange the goods in such a way that the employees in the store can put them away directly in the correct order.
The autonomously and manually packed pallets are packed and wrapped fully automatically and then transported in the correct order via autonomous transport vehicles towards the outgoing goods area. The transport robots are equipped with state-of-the-art sensors, cameras and motor technologies that help them to follow the optimum route and navigate safely around people and objects.
In addition to the high-bay warehouse, Geisenfeld also has an automated picking system (AKA) for fruit and vegetables. The system can handle up to 50,000 packages per day and can process different combinations of different transport boxes. This means that all freshly delivered fruit and vegetables simply have to be brought into the machine and then boxes of lettuce or bananas are removed from the pallet and put together individually for the stores using the AKA.
Automation makes everyday work much easier for the employees on site. For example, the use of robots and mobile shelves eliminates walking distances and strenuous work. Robots provide ideal support for heavy goods in particular. Order pickers can therefore devote more time to tasks such as checking goods and loading sensitive items.
