Multishuttle optimises 3PL distribution for ALLOGA

Safety and efficiency are assigned the highest priority at Alloga AG. Founded in 1957, the Swiss company provides 3PL services for many well known partners, supplying wholesalers, doctors and pharmacies.

“Warehousing has been concentrated at our Burgdorf site for the past decade,” explained Alloga’s Logistics Manager, Peter Freiburghaus.

Over that time, the 3PL’s supply chain has become much more demanding, with customers placing increasing numbers of orders for smaller quantities of items.

“In light of increasing quantities of minimum volume orders, we were looking for a future-oriented solution to automate goods-to-person (GTP) picking to generate immediate financial benefits, and that would also offer us the ability to accommodate further growth,” said Mr Freiburghaus.

“Dematic presented an innovative solution based on using Multishuttle® as an automated order picking buffer, an attractive price/performance ratio and long-term investment security,” he said.

Alloga’s distribution challenge
Each year, the Burgdorf DC processes more than 420,000 orders, comprising around 60 million units.

“Based on the Multishuttle, we were able to develop and present a concept for Alloga tailored precisely to the 3PL provider’s needs,” said Dematic’s Peter Spycher.

“The solution offers the required performance for the anticipated throughput, numerous cost advantages and also includes modular expansion options capable of doubling the existing container management capacity, which leaves Alloga well placed for further long term growth.”

Stocks of 10,000+ different products are stored in the central warehouse. After incoming goods have been checked for put-away, they are entered into the IT system, and sampling and approval processes carried out where appropriate.

Multishuttle handles split case orders
Orders requiring less than full case quantities are now processed by the DC’s Multishuttle system, which houses about 2,500 products across a total of 8,320 container storage spaces in the twoaisle, double deep system.

The Captive Multishuttle at Alloga is serviced by 20 Multishuttle cars – one for each of the ten storage levels in each aisle. They ensure fast access to the containers, with the outward process of up to 800 containers per hour to the order picking workstations contractually guaranteed,” said Mr Spycher.

“Much higher throughput rates can be achieved than were previously possible using conventional picking strategies,” he added.

Automated order picking
All operations are carried out automatically. The order picking process is initiated by Alloga’s warehouse management system (WMS). Controlled by Dematic’s material flow system, the required containers are accessed in the Multishuttle. The smart Multishuttle follows optimised goods outwards strategies, sequencing picking by product group and by product characteristics, such as, “liquid”, “light” or “heavy,” with no loss in performance.

For order picking, the employees move the transferred article containers onto a set of scales. A display shows the order picker the quantity of items that needs to be picked and transferred to the appropriate customer container.

In this process, up to four different customer containers can be open for order picking on each order picking workstation. After the order picker has acknowledged the process, the open containers are transported back into the warehouse. At the same time, further containers are removed from the system for order picking.

Minimising errors
Completed customer containers are transported to packing stations where orders are checked and prepared for despatch. Packages are then consolidated on pallets or roller containers and prepared for shipping.

“Thanks to this process optimisation, we were able to reduce our error rate considerably,” stated Mr Freiburghaus.

“The checking and safety measures integrated multiple times over in the order picking system not only support the order picking processes, they also enable consistent monitoring and, where necessary, restrict access to sensitive pharmaceutical items.”

Around 1,800 orders are processed and shipped using these methods each day in the central Alloga warehouse, with the trend for orders requiring less than case quantities on the rise.

Future-proof design
Dematic has taken future expansion into account in the system design for Alloga. For example, the Multishuttle installation is designed for future system expansion with an additional ten levels.

This means that the warehouse volume could be doubled within the same basic area, without substantial modifications to the warehouse layout and processes. “A logistics system that masters every challenge and provides cost-effective solutions,” summed up Mr Freiburghaus.

“This applies equally to the services we provide to our partners and customers, and to the Dematic solution for small volume order picking.”