Rittal, a manufacturer of modular enclosure, power management, and software products is using a massive new global distribution center in Haiger, Germany to deliver enclosures and housings twice as fast as before. The state-of-the-art logistics center has an area of more than 4,000 m2 to 32 m high in some sections to fully automate the transport of items into place and then pick them at 14 km per hour.
Rittal’s new automated warehouse includes an AS/RS that significantly adds to the company’s global footprint of 225,000 m² of storage space and more than 170,000 pallet positions.
Integrated controls track details of incoming and outgoing products and coordinate items to be loaded onto pallets and trucks for shipment. Up to 80 trucks a day take enclosures of all sizes (as well as cooling units and accessories) out of the logistics center to destinations worldwide.
Speed rules the automated warehouse. “We’ve increased the quantity of products dispatched from the global distribution center by 50% and halved throughput time while increasing delivery quality,” said Andreas Nögel, V.P. of Global Logistics at Rittal.
The facility has an automated high-bay AS/RS with 21,500 pallet positions for large enclosures and an automated small-parts warehouse with 25,000 container positions. High availability of stock products quickens delivery. “Immediate availability is a selling point for our customers,” said Nögel.
This expands on Rittal’s concept of mass production and immediate shipment of electrical-control enclosures — displacing expensive enclosures made in metal workshops through complicated means.
Filed Under: Warehouse automation, Cabinets • enclosures • control panels
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