TPT September 2016

T E CHNOLOG Y

Automated storage and retrieval HIGH performance engineering steel is stored safely and picked more efficiently at Oldbury-basedBohler-Uddeholm(UK) since it invested £3mn in an automated Kasto Unicompact warehouse and a further £1mn in other site improvements. The computer-controlled storage and retrieval system became operational in the first quarter of 2016, having been systematically populated with bar, tube and other long stock that was previously held in conventional cantilever racking. The immediate and future benefits are far-reaching. The number of forklift trucks on site has been cut from 15 to six, reducing overheads, making the working environment safer for personnel and cutting diesel emissions. In addition, warehouse operator costs have been lowered by 15 per cent, with personnel redeployed to other duties. gantry crane feeds 12 cassette buffer stations, where operators put material away into store and pick orders. Some material is transferred to 17 automatic bandsaws and on to other machine tools, all of which are now close to the store. Previously, material on racking had to be found by the picker and moved through two bays by lift truck

for processing. This entailed significant operational cost disadvantages, health and safety risks associated with manual material movement and potential delays in supplying customers.

Kasto Ltd – UK Email: sales@kasto.uk.com Website: www.kasto.uk.com

There has been an 80 per cent saving in floor area. The Kasto store has a 1,000m 2 footprint, whereas previously 5,500m 2 was required to stock 2,600 tons of material, although the new tower can easily hold double that amount. The freed floor space will be used to increase the number of bandsaws, machining centres and grinders to allow Bohler-Uddeholm (UK) to carry out more added-value processing. Bohler-Uddeholm is part of the Special Steel Division of voestalpine Stahl AG, which owns specialised mills in Austria, Germany, Sweden and Brazil producing cold and hot work steels, mould and tool steels, high-speed steels and various alloys including nickel-based varieties. The Kasto Unicompact 3.5 at Oldbury is the sixth bespoke warehouse manufactured by Kasto in Germany for Bohler-Uddeholm group distribution centres worldwide. The 37m-long store contains 2,377 travelling cassettes capable of holding steel bars and tubes up to 8m long to a maximum weight per location of 3.5 tons. Useable width of the cassettes is 620mm and there are three height variants – 180mm, 220mm and 450mm. The automated storage and retrieval facility is 15m high and has been built onto the end of the original warehouse at Oldbury, which is nine metres high. Exterior parts of the extension have weatherproof cladding, including a 26m long end wall and the four sides of the tower that are above the 9m roof line. An integrated overhead

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S eptember 2016