high-bay warehouse
goods storage in high-bay warehouses
The high-bay warehouse starts at a height of twelve meters and offers space for thousands of pallets. It is a high-performance storage system with excellent use of space, but high investment costs are involved. Modern logistics relies on the possibilities of high-bay warehouses in many areas.
Table of contents
definition
A high-bay warehouse (HRW) houses its shelves in a warehouse with a minimum height of twelve meters and a maximum height of 50 meters. Thousands to hundreds of thousands of pallet spaces can be accommodated in this type of warehouse.
Typical for the high-bay warehouse is the high space utilization and the management of the fully electronic system with a warehouse management system .
construction
High-bay warehouses are generally made of steel or wood, with steel structures being the norm. Even wooden high-bay warehouses reach heights of 30 meters.
They can be designed as manual warehouses built in a hall or as fully automatic warehouses in silo construction. There are numerous mixed forms in between. The exact design depends greatly on the requirements; in practice, high-bay warehouses take on very different forms and are equipped in a variety of ways.
Advantages and disadvantages
When deciding for or against a high-bay warehouse, questions such as space utilization and costs play an important role.
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storage area
The goods are stored in the warehouse area. Between every two rows of shelves there is an aisle with a storage and retrieval machine (SRM). This moves on rails or by induction in the aisle to store and retrieve the goods.
Whether the RBG is controlled automatically depends on the picking principle :
- Order picking in the pre-zone (goods to man) → automatic control
- Order picking directly at the shelf (man to goods) → manual control
In automated warehouses, each aisle has a storage and retrieval area as loading and unloading points for the forklifts. In a manual warehouse, the transfer points for the forklifts and high lift trucks are located at the front.
front zone
The goods are delivered and removed from storage in the pre-zone. If the system is operated automatically, the relevant picking stations are located in the pre-zone. The pallet then moves from the high-bay warehouse to the picking station and back again.
Different conveyor technology is required to set up the pre-zone. Its components include the following:
- chain conveyor
- roller conveyors
- lifting tables
- turntables
- converter
- transport vehicles (driverless)
- transfer carriage
- vertical conveyor
The goods are also identified for the warehouse management system in the pre-zone. Barcodes and smart labels serve as automatically readable identifiers that are attached directly to the goods. This is also where the goods are removed from the warehouse management system. In practice, this is referred to as the identification point.
control and administration
An IT system takes over the control and management of the high-bay warehouse. The control can be very complex depending on the size of the warehouse. An ERP system is often also connected for resource planning. This also includes warehouse management, which exchanges information with the material flow computer. The corresponding computer controls the conveyor technology in the pre-zone.
The IT system is responsible for storing and retrieving goods and operates according to specific guidelines. There are essentially two principles to distinguish:
- Dynamic storage: The system selects the next free space for storage.
- ABC strategy: Frequently needed products go into the A area close to the storage and retrieval area. The B area is located in the middle distance and the C area is at the back of the warehouse.
Find the right pallet rack
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