Fully Automated High-Bay Warehouse for Metallurgical Products at Kovintrade d.d.
Kovintrade d.d., the leading steel trader in Slovenia, has constructed a new 18-meter-high high-bay warehouse within the complex of its central warehouse in Štore. At its central warehouse, the company annually receives and dispatches approximately 200.000 tons of metallurgical products. Due to the need to optimize handling processes and improve the efficient use of storage space, the company invested EUR 5.2 million in a new fully automated warehouse system.
.JPG)
Photo: Kovintrade d.d.
The warehouse is completely automated and robotized, requiring only two operators per shift for operation. It has a total capacity of 5,000 tons and includes 2,478 storage locations, or cassettes, each with a capacity of up to 3 tons.
The automated system enables significantly faster and more precise material handling and allows approximately 25 order dispatches per hour, which is considerably faster than conventional handling processes where a large amount of non-productive material repositioning occurs.
The high-bay warehouse is designed for the so-called “long product range,” mainly including: pipes, steel beams, round steel bars, flat steel bars with lengths of 3 and 6 meters.
The new robotic warehouse will enable shorter delivery response times for customers and may, in the future, allow the elimination of the third (night) shift at the central warehouse.
The total investment amounts to EUR 5.2 million. The warehouse was manufactured by the Swiss company FEHR Lagerlogistik AG. Construction, foundation works, installation, and trial operation took approximately one year.