Körber is building a new central warehouse for connection technology specialist binder in Neckarsulm, Germany, as part of its new company headquarters. The new warehouse is a modern logistics system with the highest level of automation in the company’s history.
binder is one of the market leaders in the field of circular connectors for industrial and automation technology. The binder Group employs 1,800 people at 18 locations worldwide. At the headquarters in Neckarsulm, a future-oriented plant with production, logistics, offices, and social rooms is being built in two phases. At the end of the first phase, a logistics area with high-bay warehouse for pallets and a miniload system for boxes and extensive conveyor technology will be put into operation.
The new central warehouse combines the previously structurally and spatially separate shipping and parts warehouse. It is directly connected to the three existing plants. These will be gradually merged in the next construction phase.
“By concentrating the warehouses and the products stream in a single location, the complexity of the supply chain for binder is significantly reduced,” says Dirk Hejnal, CEO of Körber Business Area Supply Chain. “In combination with the concept of system technology that will grow with the company, hereafter, a high degree of flexibility is provided.”
As a general contractor, Körber built the automated, state-of-the-art logistics center in close collaboration with general planner TKS Unternehmensberatung und Industrieplanung. It consists of a single-aisle pallet warehouse with double-deep storage and a capacity of around 1,500 pallet locations, as well as a quadruple-deep shuttle warehouse with around 45,000 box locations in three aisles and on 58 levels. Storage and retrieval of the pallets is carried out with a fully automatic stacker crane with an output of 35 double cycles per hour. Four highly dynamic shuttle vehicles are used in the shuttle warehouse per aisle, providing an output of 450 double cycles per hour in total.
Additionally, Körber implemented the entire logistics IT on the basis of SAP EWM (Extended Warehouse Management) and SAP EWM/MFS on the basis of SAP’s most recent technical platform SAP S4/HANA. The processes of incoming goods, production transfer and storage as well as commissioning and dispatch are mapped in SAP EWM. SAP EWM/MFS controls the material flow in the automatic warehouse areas.
“With the number of shuttle vehicles, the performance of the system can grow as demand continues to grow”, says Andreas Ebert, CEO Automation, Körber Business Area Supply Chain, about the concept of the shuttle warehouse. The optimization within the shuttle warehouse takes place via individualized process management systems from Körber which are integrated into the superordinate SAP EWM/MFS. Apart from the functional coverage of the diverse processes, binder places great value on an intuitive user interface. Körber used SAP UI5 for this, the most modern technology of SAP. The result is a single, easy to use, lean logistics system with highest possible throughput and capacity
With its high level of automation, the new central warehouse is a milestone for binder. Given this, it was important to accurately map and check the performance of the warehouse and processes in advance. As a result, the full system and design were run through and enhanced several times with Kӧrber’s warehouse design and simulation software.
“For us, as an innovative and traditional family company characterized by values, our new headquarters is a clear commitment to ongoing advancement of our region. Thanks to the cooperation with Körber, we have succeeded in setting an example in terms of technology”, said Markus Binder, Managing Director of the binder Group.
