Product category:
Robotics, Handling and Storage
News Release from: Stocklin | Subject: Automated warehouse systems
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 16 October 2001
Automated warehouse operation for
Computacenter
Same day service for non-configured products at Computacenter is facilitated by the highly automated warehouse operation designed, installed and supported by Stocklin
The UK's leading IT services company Computacenter operates in the fast moving world of providing specially configured hardware and software for large corporate clients and government departments Fast moving because this is a high value product market where rapid technical advances result in short life cycles
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 16 Jul 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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Consequently, stock control is paramount, and ensuring that stock obsolescence is kept to an absolute minimum is a key objective.
But it is excellence in customer service that gives Computacenter an edge over its competitors, ensuring that the company continues to maintain its strong position in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
In order to continue and build upon its success, the company has recently undertaken a major change program, moving its logistics operation from a collection of five industrial units in Radlett to an impressive purpose built Operations Centre in Hatfield.
The Centre allows Computacenter to offer a same day service for non-configured products in the South East and to most of the UK within 24 hours.This operation is facilitated by the highly automated warehouse operation designed, installed and supported by Stocklin Ltd.
Based at Stevenage, Hertfordshire, Stocklin Ltd is the UK subsidiary of the internationally renowned St?cklin Group.
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The group has for many years been at the forefront of automated storage and handling technology and is accredited with more than 600 implementations throughout the world.
Whilst the group is well known for the manufacture of a comprehensive range of warehouse storage and materials handling equipment, it is for its expertise as a turnkey supplier of total warehouse solutions that the UK subsidiary has become recognised.
At Computacenter, Stocklin acted as principal contractor for the design, manufacture, supply and installation of the automated Material Handling Equipment, including comprehensive documentation and staff training.
The new Hatfield site, which is now live, has provided Computacenter with the means to cope with a two-fold increase in business, and has been designed to handle a volume of 35,000 items per day, amounting to EUR 5.25 billion of sales a year.
This increase in scale has brought about a significant reduction in handling costs.
Products arriving at the site are stored either on pallets or in bins according to volume.
Incoming palletised goods are loaded onto house slave pallets prior to entering the 22m high automated bulk storage warehouse, segregated into two separate fire compartments.
The highbay warehouse has 17,000 pallet locations configured into a 10-aisle system, serviced by dedicated Stocklin RGB 0 stacker cranes providing a throughput of up to 500 pallet movements per hour.
Small items are decanted into plastic bins before being transported to a four aisle 18m high automated miniload store with 22,000 storage locations.
Here four highly efficient Stocklin "Quickstore" miniload cranes with multiple load handling devices achieve a throughput of up to 800 bin movements per hour.
An extensive network of pallet and bin handling conveyor systems transport large and small items from the various storage areas to picking faces.
Here components are either picked and packed for same day shipment or "kitted" prior to being configured into client systems.
A pallet forward picking area comprises a multi level mezzanine picking system for the 600 fastest moving lines with fully automatic replenishment from the highbay bulk store.
Likewise, small parts are transported from the miniload store to the bin forward picking area which is segregated into fast and slow movement picking zones, also with automatic replenishment.
A Windows based management system running Oracle in a configuration of six Windows servers for redundancy manages the entire Operations Centre process.
In addition to the services described above, Stocklin continues to support and maintain the MHE, with a dedicated team of on-site engineers providing round the clock support as part of a package specifically tailored to Computacenter's high availability requirements.
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