A truck backs into a dock at the BASF warehouse in Breuil-le-Sec, France, just north of Paris. As the truck’s driver remains in his cab, an unmanned automated guided vehicle opens the truck’s gate and goes to work removing pallets of vehicle paint products.
The AGV transfers the pallets to a conveyor system, which moves the pallets to another area of the warehouse where yet another robotic worker breaks down the pallets and reassembles the cases on new pallets, which are then transferred to a very narrow aisle truck that takes the load to predetermined area of the warehouse, where it is put away.
The elapsed time? Just of a few minutes. The total number of human workers involved in the process? Zero.
Working towards Full Capacity
The automated system — which was installed by the Belgian company Egemin Automation — currently is in the ramp-up phase, according to a company news release. But when the employee-less warehouse is at full capacity, it will be able to process 2,500 boxes every 14 hours over two shifts per day.
About 500 people continue to work in the BASF production facility, which makes paints and lacquers for both vehicle body work and repair, as well as for car makers. But the company’s warehouse has eliminated the need for any employees. Everything is automated.
When they are produced, the automotive paints are stored in tins ranging in size from one-half liter to 5 liters, which are then packed into boxes. These cases are then placed on mono-reference pallets, which are transferred and stored in the pallet warehouse.
Robotic Vehicles Do the Work
Egemin provided the pallet mini warehouse’s racking, as well as two MX-X turret very narrow aisle trucks built by its sister company, STILL. The VNAs were fitted with Egemin’s E’gv automation pack. The warehouse can accommodate about 14,000 boxes of product.
BASF management installed the system due to concerns about operator safety, risk prevention, and protection of the environment. Due to the nature of the chemicals it handles, the facility is required to have special safety equipment, including integrated explosimeters that are attached to the AGVs to detect any leak of solvent vapor.
The pallet warehouse has a capacity of about 3,500 pallets, an estimated 70 percent of which eventually will make their way to customers outside of France. When an order comes in, the automated VNAs will pick up full pallets and deliver them to trucks waiting at the dock. Mixed pallets are conveyed to a palletizer, which reorganizes the mixed pallets so they can be shipped to the customer.
Egemin — a subsidiary of KION Group and is headquartered in nearby Antwerp, Belgium — designs, integrates and maintains automated materials handling solutions to improve the intralogistics processs in warehouses, production, and distribution facilities.