Storing drums and IBC’s at ADPO Ghent, Belgium

The goal of the project was to replace the old Warehouse Control System (WCS) by a new Warehouse Management System (WMS), taking in account all WCS functionalities and adding a great number of WMS functions in order to gain a more reliable and effective automated warehouse.

SattStore WMS for controlling and optimizing the flow of goods

For input an operator creates and activates a destination planning to determine where the filled drums must go to. This can be either the highbay store or the lowbay store.

The drums are filled on automatic or manual filling lines. At the end of the line the drums are loaded on a transfer car. This transfer car transports the drums from the filling lines to the conveyor system.

There the pallets can go to the AGV system for storing the pallets in the highbay store or to the manual output for storing the pallets in the lowbay store.

When a pallet is bound for the highbay store the AGV brings the pallet to one of the four cranes. The crane picks up the pallet and stores it on a free location. All these transports are managed and controlled by the SattStore system. External goods are handled in the same way, but with the use of a handheld terminal. The handheld terminal is responsible for various functions in the warehouse:

• Input of stock
• Output of stock
• Picking
• Stocktaking
• Internal stock movements

When a truck arrives for loading several ways of transport are activated to control the truck loading:

• Transports are created and activated from both the highbay and lowbay stores
• Goods arrived from the highbay store are registered by scanning on the handheld terminal to complete the delivery
• Goods coming from the lowbay stores are displayed on the terminal to be performed

In this way all transports are managed and controlled by the SattStore system. The chance to make mistakes is reduced by working this way. All stock changes are reported back to the ERP system to synchronize the quantities in the warehouse. The AGV system is configured to work as efficient as possible. This means that when no work is to be done some AGV’s will return to the charging positions while others will wait on predefined positions to perform new work quickly.

At the end of the day the AGV’s will automatically return to their charging positions to be fully charged.

Special functions

• Control of PLC-operated conveyor-, AGV- and cranesystem
• Working with loose pieces instead of pallets
• Communication to and from the ERP system using the ABB Message Broker
• Full manual control for stock input

  Equipment used

• 1 Windows 2000 Server, 2.4 Ghz, 1GB
• 7 Windows XP client PC’s, 2.4 Ghz, 256MB
• 1 Serial Alarm Printer
• 1 Laser Printer
• 1 Fixed Scanner
• 4 RF Handheld Terminals
• 4 Access Points
• 1 Point to Point connection
• 1 Serial Portserver

Warehouse specifications

• 5000 m2 Warehousing
• Fully automated high-bay warehouse for 4.000 pallet positions, 4 cranes, 8 racks, 13 levels
• 2 Lowbay Areas divided over two physical warehouses with a total of 1250 block stacking and racking locations

Read more at www.adpo.com

2007