TPT September 2016

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September 2016 85
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.
There has been an 80 per cent saving
in floor area. The Kasto store has a
1,000m2 footprint, whereas previously
5,500m2 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
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
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