With a new highly automated central warehouse at the Melsungen site, the automation specialists aim the retailer from mid- its more than 500 Edeka Hessenring branches 2029.
Photo: Edeka Hessenring
It's the "inner values," meaning the intralogistics, that matter. Until now, only manual warehousing and order picking solutions have been used, explains Hessenring's Head of Logistics, Martin Steinmetz. "Based on innovative automated logistics technology, we will be able to supply our independent retailers better and more economically in the future, despite the ever-increasing variety of our product range. Furthermore, our employees throughout the entire supply chain will benefit from ergonomic and sustainable work processes."
No more "silos"
The 35,300 m² facility, with a total of 306,000 pallet, tray, and container storage locations and 58 high-performance storage and retrieval machines, is designed for a daily picking capacity of 285,500 pick units. The majority of these will be stacked fully automatically, flawlessly, and in a store-ready manner onto pallets or roll containers by 18 COM machines . Small-volume, fast- and slow-moving items will picked directly into shipping containers at ten workstations using Witron's All-in-One (AIO) system .
Bulky items are picked by logistics staff using voice-picking, controlled by the semi-automated Witron Car Picking System (CPS). Subsequent consolidation—and consequently, a high degree of compaction on the load carriers—is integrated into the material flow concept through the conveyor system connecting all logistics areas. Half and quarter pallets are automatically placed onto pallets and roll containers by the Witron Display Pallet Picking System (DPP) . The shipping process is optimized by a fully automated outbound buffer.
Virtually all mechanical, conveyor, racking, and platform elements are designed and manufactured by Witron in-house at their Parkstein facility. The same applies to the IT, control , and AI tools used. Witron's automated solutions have already been successfully implemented in Hamm/Oberhausen (Rhine-Ruhr region), Landsberg (Southern Bavaria region), Zarrentin/Neumünster (Northern region), Berbersdorf/Marktredwitz ( Northern Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia region), as well as at the Netto distribution centers in Erharting and Henstedt-Ulzburg .
