Automated high-bay warehouse for worldwide spare parts supply

Claas KGaA mbH is an internationally active agricultural machinery group headquartered in Harsewinkel, East Westphalia. Founded in 1913, the company is one of the market and technology leaders in harvesting technology.

In order to continue to provide the increasingly extensive product range of spare parts (more than 300,000) for worldwide shipment in a highly available manner, Claas is investing in its central warehouse for spare parts distribution.

Until now, the pallets have been stored manually in the central warehouse as well as in external storage areas.
The aim is to have them centrally accessible in a new high bay warehouse.

The future viability is to be taken into account already in the design by an expandability of the storage system as well as the transport system.

Nine storage and retrieval machines store the pallets and pallet cages in single and double-deep aisles.
The logistical heart of the system is the electric monorail system (EMS), which is part of the automated warehouse and acts as a pre-zone loop.

Thanks to the double load handling device on the storage and retrieval machines and the transfer of two pallets by the double EMS vehicles, highly dynamic handling of the transport units is ensured.

The EMS pre-zone loop serves as a link between the storage area and the picking area.
The pallet conveyor technology connects the incoming goods area, the NOK work station, the full retrieval area and the picking stations.

The order picking area based on the goods-to-person principle enables high picking performance and can be expanded to double the number of workstations.