Two decades of customer loyalty: GSR Ventiltechnik expands miniload warehouse

On an expansion course: For over 50 years, GSR Ventiltechnik has been synonymous with expertise in the development, production and global sales of magnetic and pressure-controlled standard and special valves. In order to considerably increase its capacities at the site of its corporate headquarters in Vlotho, North Rhine-Westphalia, the valve technology company is now expanding its automated miniload warehouse, built in 2002, with the help of Jungheinrich.

For this purpose, Jungheinrich enlarged the single-aisle miniload warehouse with a second aisle in a newly built hall. “This project is a particularly meaningful success for us because we also created the first automated miniload warehouse solution in 2002,” explains Christian Hopf, project manager at Jungheinrich. “This means GSR Ventiltechnik have been our automation customers for approximately 20 years now, and we have managed to impress them once again.” 

In specific terms, Jungheinrich delivered an additional aisle, including rack structures made of steel, as part of the re-planning of the 26.5-metre long, 4.2-metre wide and 8-metre high warehouse. The solution supplied is comprised of conveyor systems, which can be controlled from four incoming goods and order-picking stations, plus the stacker crane for the new aisle, as well as a further stacker crane, which replaces the existing device in the first aisle. This solution includes the option of adding four more work stations. The control technology in the form of a new warehouse management system (WMS) also comes from Jungheinrich.

Following the upgrade, the miniload warehouse allows GSR Ventiltechnik to achieve an output of 160 containers per hour, thanks to 4,740 additional storage locations and double-deep racking. “An additional aisle with a stacker crane and a high-performance stacker crane to replace the existing stacker crane in the first aisle – this is how the performance of the facility was more than doubled,” says Hopf regarding the impressive performance increase achieved for GSR Ventiltechnik.

Connecting the new aisles in Vlotho with the new, directly adjacent buildings of the existing facility was particularly challenging – especially during running operations. For this reason, the conveyor systems were built in such a way that the existing warehouse could also be reached through an opening in the wall. The previous facility was only shut down and integrated after the new aisles began operating. In the course of this, the existing order-picking locations were disabled.

“The transition from the automated miniload warehouse built in 2002 to the new facility was completed seamlessly,” declares Michael Beer, head of engineering at GSR Ventiltechnik. “Overall, we are very satisfied with the constructive cooperation in the spirit of partnership with Jungheinrich, both back then and today.”