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New automatic warehouse and SAP EWM form backbone of manufacturing area
26.08.2013
viastore builds warehouse for Mennekes Elektrotechnik Sachsen GmbH
The warehouse of Mennekes Elektrotechnik Sachsen GmbH, located in Neudorf, Saxony (Germany), forms the backbone of the company’s newly organized manufacturing area. General contractor viastore systems installed its new high- performance viaspeed storage/retrieval machine, which can handle a total of eleven storage and retrieval stations in one aisle thanks to its high speed operation. Moreover viastore implemented the SAP EWM warehouse management system and the SAP EWM-MFS material flow system which controls the warehouse processes and is directly linked to the plant and conveyor system control by means of SAP Plant Connectivity.
Mennekes, a leading manufacturer of industrial plugs and a pioneer in electric mobility solutions, acquired the company which originally operated under the name Technoplast from the Treuhand in the 1990s. Since then, the product range has grown steadily, and the parent company located in Kirchhundem moved many items from its basic product range to the new subsidiary in the Ore Mountains, including CEE plug connections such as sockets, plugs, socket combinations and much more.
Approaching capacity limit
“In 2008 our location reached its capacity limit,” recalls Paulinus Pauly, Managing Director of Mennekes Elektrotechnik Sachsen GmbH. “We had to accommodate parts of the production and the warehouse in external buildings; the technology was outdated and the logistic processes were anything but smooth.” For example, the conventional warehouse that supplied the production as working to capacity limit, having only one storage and retrieval location. This resulted in the staff storing material at the workstations in assembly, which took up a lot of space that was no longer available for creating added value. So the management decided to reorganize the entire location and revise the complete production and logistics structures. Here they drew on the support of the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics, IML. The experts from Dortmund analyzed the actual situation regarding goods and material flows and developed a concept for the future structure of the site in collaboration with Mennekes.
Storage and retrieval stations on two floors
“A key objective was to establish our intralogistics as a cross-sectional function across the entire production structure,” explains Managing Director Pauly. That means, the logistics should optimally connect the three manufacturing areas – plastics injection molding, assembly and sheet metal processing which manufactures mainly stainless steel housings, for instance for socket combinations. The special challenge in this context was that these areas were accommodated on two floors: sheet metal processing on the ground floor, and the assembly and injection molding areas on the upper floor, separately from each other.
The IML experts therefore developed a concept involving an automatic warehouse with a pallet system (APW) and a mini-load system (MLS) extending along the flank of the manufacturing building. Thus it connects the production areas horizontally. Since it is more than nine meters high, it can include the plastics injection molding, sheet metal processing or assembly areas on the different floors.
The main access for external deliveries is the goods receiving area for the pallet and mini-load systems on the ground floor. Here the parts and components that are not manufactured in Neudorf are delivered to a truck ramp. At the other end of the aisles on the upper floor there is a pick station, from where the assembly area is supplied with components of the Amaxx series, including power distributors, socket combinations and housings. Here, the employees also obtain other parts required in assembly that were produced in plastics injection molding beforehand.
Finally, an additional work area was set up for the assembly of PowerTop products – these are plugs and connectors for use in harsh environments. This assembly station is located on the upper floor. “Thus, the storage/retrieval machine can deliver the material directly to the workstation,” explains Thomas Freund, Head of Production. For this purpose, rack storage locations were replaced by conveyor lanes, on which the storage/retrieval machine directly places the containers requested by the assembly station.
SAP EWM with direct connection to the control level
“Another important point regarding the reorganization of the company was to use SAP – or SAP EWM to be more precise –, for controlling the warehouse through to the interface at the control level,” says Paulinus Pauly. Thomas Freund adds: “We are using SAP throughout the Group. In our parent company’s IT department, there are experienced specialists who have been familiar with SAP since the late 90s. EWM is already used there in shipping logistics.” SAP EWM (Extended Warehouse Management) is a part of the SAP Business Suite. It was developed specifically for use in warehouse logistics and can also be used as a stand-alone solution. The system fully supports all the relevant processes and provides all the necessary functions. SAP EWM includes a material flow system that can map an automatic warehouse system without requiring an additional warehouse control unit. Using the supplied warehouse management monitor, employees at Mennekes can follow up the processes, evaluate them and add input where necessary.
Separating the wheat from the chaff
The IML suggested a number of providers for the implementation of the new warehouse as a general contractor. “This is where the wheat was separated from the chaff very quickly, if only with respect to the required technology,” says Paulinus Pauly. Finally, the contract was awarded to viastore, a leading provider of turnkey internal logistics systems and warehouse management software. A major reason being that the Stuttgart-based company boasted a high level of SAP competence. As a certified SAP partner, viastore has offered the implementation of SAP logistics solutions for quite a while now and can refer to some 20 years of experience in this field. “viastore is a full-range provider, and offers both hardware and software,” Paulinus Pauly sums up the advantages. “With a solution from a single source, there are no other interfaces to external companies, and the entire implementation is within the responsibility of this one-stop supplier."
With six meters per second from one order to the next
The experts from viastore built aisles with 897 pallet storage locations and over 10,000 locations for the double-deep storage of containers. Storage and retrieval in the pallet rack is done by a viapal storage/retrieval machine (SRM), and by the high-performance viaspeed SRM in the container system. “The warehouse in Neudorf is one of the first in which the new viaspeed was used,” says viastore Project Manager Valentin Hahn-Woernle. It didn’t take long for the high-performance mini-load machine to become firmly established on the market. Because: “In the development of the viaspeed SRM, the designers placed special emphasis on achieving constantly high dynamic values and a high level of energy efficiency.” So they developed a lightweight design, with a choice of either energy equalization or energy refeed. Above all, it achieves an operating speed of six meters per second – “a top value in the market,” Hahn-Woernle points out. “This high speed is vital in the mini-load system because the seven input and output lanes require an SRM that can handle all the tasks so fast that there are no idle periods – neither at the pick stations nor in assembly.”
As close as possible to the SAP standard
Parallel to setting up the warehouse and conveyor system equipment, viastore also began with the implementation of the SAP solution. “Our target was to stay as close as possible to the standard,” Thomas Freund describes the task. “This means that the transparency will be maintained for our IT department.” This goal was achieved. There are only two exceptions – the assembly station for the PowerTop products and the pick station for the Amaxx products. “These are customized workstations and have to be represented accordingly in SAP EWM,” says Patrick Eichstädt, Division Manager SAP at viastore. “The overall system can always be upgraded.”
A special challenge: Set picking
Set picking of the Amaxx products required particular attention. In order to optimally supply the assembly workstations, employees prepick certain component groups such as upper and lower parts, packing the parts needed for final assembly in containers as sets. Six of these set boxes can be positioned at the pick station. The items are always tendered in the same order required for picking, even though they are stored in various storage containers. This means that SAP EWM must be able, for example, to retrieve two boxes of parts “A”, then two boxes of parts “B” and then three boxes of parts “C”. If an order covers more sets than fit in the six pick containers, the entire picking procedure must be repeated, starting once again with part “A”. “We adjusted SAP EWM so that the containers are always delivered in the correct order,” explains Eichstädt. “At the same time, the system checks whether there is enough material in the containers to fill all the sets. If this is not the case, the system supplies a second container holding the same material before transporting new components to the pick station.
This follows a dialogue developed by Mennekes especially for such requests.” Only then can waiting time during picking be avoided. The viastore programmers worked closely with the experts of Mennekes’ IT department on these issues. They also accompanied Mennekes during the commissioning phase: “The fact that viastore had a permanent project team made commissioning much easier – everyone of us knew the system inside and out,” emphasizes Pauly.
Setting the course for further growth
“With the new warehouse we can now supply our material to the workstations on a just-in-time basis,” Thomas Freund describes the successful project. “There is no more unnecessary material in production and the formerly occupied areas have been freed-up for value-adding processes.” “Investing in this system shows the Group’s commitment to this location,” Paulinus Pauly adds. “The bottom line is that the new warehouse has brought us a huge step forward in our production and logistics processes. We are now well positioned and poised for further growth.”