Automated high bay
Flooring manufacturer IVC has awarded Egemin Automation a contract to supply a complete warehouse and distribution system.
Due to growth and consequent lack of space, the IVC plant was in need of expansion.
The Egemin system will ensure fully automated transport and storage of products between production, warehouse and dispatch in the planned new warehouse facility. In addition to an automated high-bay warehouse, AGVs and conveyors, the installation also includes an extensive picking zone where shipments are prepared for the customer.
Commercial manager Henk Deloof says: “Our E’wms software manages the high-bay warehouse, the picking zone on the floor above the shipping zone and the transports to and from both zones. Work on the site will start in April and completion is expected by the end of this year.”
Egemin will build the automatic high bay warehouse in a clad rack construction. It will be 35 metres high and it will consist of three crane courses and three pallet cranes for single-deep storage of pallets. The warehouse will have a total of 10,600 pallet locations and 30 levels for pallets with different heights. The three crane courses each have a length of 78 metres.
An E’gv system with three counterbalance AGVs will be responsible for the intake and transport of the pallets from the production department to the conveyor bridge linking production and warehouse. The AGVs are equipped with a counterweight to transport loads with very different dimensions. A transfer car will drive on the conveyor bridge to transfer the finished pallets from production to the warehouse and will take the return pallets from the warehouse back to production for quality control.
The central conveyor loop will provide the connection between the various supply points and destinations, such as the “I” point for pallet identification and control, and the line for finished pallets. A shortcut in the conveyor loop will take the rejected pallets from the pallet flow and leads them directly to the reject line where the error, such as a non-readable code, will be fixed.
In the picking zone on the first floor all shipments to customers will be prepared with pallets fed from the warehouse. Picking itself will be done through dynamic pick faces for fast moving goods and static pick faces for slow movers. The pickers will receive instructions by voice terminals to go to the desired locations to pick the corresponding goods. Egemin will also integrate an articulated arm robot for automatic full-layer picking. After picking the created pallets will be returned to the warehouse via the central conveyor loop. When a delivery truck is ready, the system will take the required pallets from the warehouse to the preparation buffer in the shipping zone to offer them to the truck loaders.
Egemin’s experience with projects of this size and its no-nonsense approach convinced the IVC Group of its choice. Egemin will also be responsible for the maintenance of the installation.
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