Every day, even 60 semi-trailer trucks with about 2 thousand pallets with bakery products depart from this place: Inter Europol, a large bakery which, in addition to fresh products, offers also long-life, frozen and part-bake or raw goods.
The bakery located in Małopole near Warsaw provides products to hyper and supermarkets, hotels and restaurants, petrol stations, retail shops and its branded outlets in Poland and in other countries in the European Union as well as in Eastern Europe.
Appropriate efficiency and throughput are secured by fully automated processes in a high bay warehouse, including those which ensure an unbroken cold chain. The automation of cold store and freezer systems is a great support to people working in harsh conditions (temp. to -25°C); it also minimizes errors while storing the goods and preparing them for dispatch and shipping.
Manufacturing facilities operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A fully automated high bay warehouse (HBW) is based on a four-aisle shipping buffer with a system of conveyors integrated with the material flow. The freezer offers about 20 thousand pallet spaces for double deep storage.
In order not to interrupt a „cold chain”, two environmental chambers controlled with sensors have been installed. Their task is to guarantee optimum refrigeration of the products on their way to HBW. All necessary products are delivered from the raw materials warehouse to the section of preparation for manufacturing, where over 100 different raw materials are used to create various mixes.
Pallets in cool warehouses
Another section of the building is dedicated to packing the goods. A loading device arranges cardboard packages transported by the conveyor into pallets for storage. They are automatically labeled and transported by the conveyor to HBW. All the manufacturing processes take place under refrigerated conditions.
Between the manufacturing section and the warehouse, the products are gradually cooled down to the temperature of -25°C. The pallets are transported on the conveyers through two chambers: the first one lowers the temperature of the products’ environment to -10°C, and the second one maintains the temperature on the level of -18°C. It required attention to many details, e.g. the doors of the chambers are equipped with a heated seal (it prevents ice build-up on the edges of the seal).
In the four transfer points, automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) pick up pallets and transport them to the storage place indicated by a warehouse management system. HBW (41 m height) contains four EXYZ type AS/RSs with telescoping lifting equipment for double deep storage. In the shipping buffer, they reach the capacity of 100 double cycles per hour.
With conveying speed up to 60 m/min and travel speed up to 200 m/min, the device ensures efficient placing and retrieving of pallets, also on the highest levels of the rack.
In comparison with traditional equipment, saving of energy only during lifting is 25%; the costs of maintenance are also significantly reduced” – the inventors assure.
The remaining 4 thousand pallet spaces in a semi-automatic cold store are used as a temporary storage and order picking place. Most of the pallets are homogenous, but the employees can also pick up mixed pallets if necessary.
Conveyors with an oversight system
The pallets required to prepare shipment are sequenced in HBW in the access points of AS/RSs with the use of a transfer trolley and released, according to recommendations, on several shipping lines – three per one truck – in a refrigerated product output zone. The shipping lines designed as gravity roller conveyors allow to drag each time eleven pallets (in total 33 finished pallets).
The conveyors are equipped with holding devices, functioning as a technical safety and oversight system. They put ahead always the pallet which is to be loaded next and block pallets on the other conveyers from being picked up too early.
Photo: Schaefer