Expansion of the central warehouse at Keller & Kalmbach
Keller & Kalmbach is one of the leading service providers in C-parts management. In 2016, with around 800 employees, the company generated an annual turnover of €270 million which was almost double that of 2009 when the first construction phase was completed.
High degree of complexity in planning and assembly
The company’s focus on C-parts management for industrial clients is a particularly demanding intralogistics task. The ultimate objective is for customers to receive delivery of their goods at the right time, in the right place and in the right quantity. A new, modern distribution centre is required to handle this task. We focused on a new, and considerably more rational order picking strategy during the first construction phase. We also focused attention on the ergonomic design of the order picking workspaces as well as the efficiency of the processes.
Right from the first construction phase there was considerable success, playing a major part in the continued growth of the company. Only after five years was it necessary to expand the storage areas, again without interrupting operations. For this purpose, we extended the automatic pallet warehouse, the small parts warehouse, and the conveyor technology. A separate hall with goods to person workstations and a palletising robot was set up for order picking. We were responsible as general contractor for planning, project configuration and implementation of all intralogistics.
New central warehouse with flexible use
During the first construction phase, we divided the central warehouse into four areas which due to the arrangement, were all easy to expand. Our WMS is used to control these areas as well as the complex order picking processes. A high degree of flexibility is achieved by the corresponding conveyor technology based on the “goods-to-person” principle. We expanded the high bay warehouse by a total of five aisles in the second construction phase and at the beginning of 2016 the automatic small parts warehouse was expanded by another six aisles. At the same time, the overall materials handling capacity and thus the order picking output was doubled. Software calculates the layer pattern for the palletising robot and tells the WMS the sequence in which the containers should be retrieved from order picking. The palletising robot ensures flexible order picking, and is able to handle even major orders with little notice and with no Problems.
Seamless process
"The step-by-step commissioning was not in the original plan. But this enables us to use the warehouse area even prior to complete commissioning. We were impressed by the trust-based collaboration with Jungheinrich over the entire period. We remained on schedule and even came in under the originally proposed budget. We’ll gladly carry out any future expansions together with Jungheinrich”, praised Dr. Ingomar Schubert, Head of Supply Chain Management at Keller & Kalmbach.
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