The challenge: All mail-order-specific functions are processed in an integrated building complex; this covers storage and picking of goods coming from all over the world up to the packaging and the dispatching of the packages. The particular challenge in this case was to efficiently service the large number of customer orders – 180,000 packages at peak days – out of an extremely large range of 160,000 different products. These 180,000 packages correspond to approx. 600,000 individual products. Quelle processes more than 95 percent of its entire shipped volume of household goods suitable for shipping in packages in Leipzig, which makes the Leipzig site the logistics backbone of Quelle.
Our solution: Dematic, as general contractor, supplied all material handling equipment and provided the software and integration services for the control of transportation and storage of products:
- Steel construction and erecting of shelving with automatic stacker crane units
- Conveying and sorting technology
- Picking equipment
- Automatic workstations
- Control and computer technology, including equipment visualizations (control station)
- Software and hardware for the computer equipment, including DP peripherals
- Site management for mechanics and automation
- Project management with deadline controlling of mail order business
With the large number of handling and picking processes in this distribution center, the package processing can only proceed automated and computer-controlled. The receiving and put-away processes for incoming goods to the highbay and into the picking area is controlled by a central IT system.
The complex material flow for order execution, starting with the picking process, via a multistage sorting system to shipping, is, however, controlled decentrally by means of RFID technology. For this to happen, each of the picking totes is equipped with an RFID tag which holds, in addition to the tote identification, control information, such as the customer order number and the sorting destination, as well as specific routing data.
This data is read by RFID reader/writers and directly transmitted to the PLC for machine control. Thanks to this solution, even at the highest throughput, a material flow computer is not required. All routing decisions are made based on locally available data directly on the control level. The installed computers are only used for system visualization and as a gateway for the higher-level Quelle IT system.
The decentral information processing contributes in an important way to relieving the communication networks. Because of the reduced complexity of the IT solution and the option of testing processes in parallel and locally, project risk has been reduced and system startup has been much simplified.
Benefit for Quelle from RFID and Automation:
- Considerably increased product range
- Rapid, on-time delivery
- Increased capacity in order to be able to ship, even during the peak days of the seasons, everything that the customers have ordered at the last minute
- Local provision of instructions for operator and control
- Simplified error processing by means of the data on the container
- Reduced IT costs and complexity
