Interview with Stephan Bruns, Sales Director Technologies & Systems of Westfalia Technologies GmbH & Co. KG at the FEFCO Technical Seminar 2023.
How do you like the show?
As an intralogistics specialist, we have been one of the market leaders for automated corrugated cardboard warehouses for decades – because our conveyor and storage technologies as well as our warehouse execution system perfectly match the special requirements in the paper, corrugated cardboard and packaging industries. That’s why the FEFCO Technical Seminar is a must for us: where the European corrugated cardboard industry meets and discusses the latest developments and technologies, we of course have something to contribute.
What did Westfalia Technologies bring here, is that something new? Please show us and tell us about your innovations.
One of our key technologies, the Satellite® load handling device, has been on the market since 1983. We constantly keep the Satellite® storage systems technologically up to date in order to meet all requirements. And we now offer an extremely wide range of variants for multi-deep compact storage in very different industries and for different warehouse layouts.
Especially in the corrugated cardboard industry, the Satellite® has proven itself since its market launch because it stores high loads on pallets, other loading aids and even palettless in a particularly gentle way on materials. In addition, our storage systems can easily transport very different and often very bulky corrugated cardboard formats and store them fully automatically in a single rack compartment. This creates maximum storage density and flexibility.
Through multiple transport, our systems connect intralogistics to the increasingly efficient corrugated cardboard production. And because we can tailor our high-bay warehouses to limited floor space, raw material storage and intermediate storage, for example, can be placed directly on production lines. This saves time, energy, space and reduces the risk of accidents.
What’s new: Usually we link our storage technology on the equipment and software side to the conveyor technology that is widely used in the corrugated cardboard industry. However, as a general contractor, we now also offer this conveyor technology ourselves, together with our partners. In this way, we want to offer our customers integrated solutions for their automated intralogistics.
What else do you want to do at the exhibition?
As always: Look around and listen carefully to what developments the industry is talking about and what answers intralogistics offers to the challenges in corrugated cardboard production.
But above all, we’re also talking: With his keynote, our Sales Director Software & IT, Christian Goltermann, will present how our Warehouse Execution System Savanna® together with our storage and retrieval machines enable high-performance, highly compact and flexible automated warehouses for corrugated cardboard.
We call the principle “Tetris for corrugated board” – very different formats can be combined in high-density rack compartments. And storage channels can be flexibly divided between two storage aisles. Savanna® forms the channel boundaries dynamically, depending on the required occupancy and the planned quantities of goods.
Two trends will certainly continue: The need for higher capacities to bundle logistics and save costs and CO2. And the performance increase of corrugated cardboard plants. Automated storage systems must keep pace with production. That’s exactly what our technologies are made for!
How did your company perform in 2023? Has it gone smoothly?
We optimize our own processes and performance: By building our new headquarters in Borgholzhausen directly on the Highway A33, we have doubled our production and testing capacity. We can now manufacture more conveyor and storage technology components. And even higher automated storage and retrieval machines. The first three SRMs left the new factory and were delivered to our customer Packners. The 10,000 m2 of production and 5,000 m2 of office space at our headquarters in energy-saving construction with air heat pump heating and around 1,400 photovoltaic modules are intended to save at least 285 tons of CO2 annually. Our compact storage systems contribute to a lower CO2 footprint right from the manufacturing stage.
With this new building we have set the stage for growing demand. Among other things, we won the largest order from the corrugated cardboard industry in Westfalia’s history. In this system there are two large warehouses for cut-to-size goods and finished goods in a self-supporting silo design with thousands of rack spaces. These warehouses are organically linked to the corrugator, i.e. the corrugated cardboard production with paper warehouse, and to the production of corrugated cardboard products including palletizing. They are managed and controlled via our warehouse execution system Savanna.NET®. In this case, a greenfield project worth millions that impressively underlines the performance of automated intralogistics. We are looking forward to it!
In addition to the demand from large manufacturers, for example from the corrugated cardboard industry, we are also observing that more and more smaller companies are opting to automate their warehouse logistics. The investment usually pays off quickly. SMEs not only multiply their capacity, but also avoid costly process errors. And despite the shortage of skilled workers, they can meet the increasing demand for a wide range of corrugated cardboard products and continue to grow.
We automate and modernize warehouses from a few hundred to tens of thousands of rack spaces. With our smallest SRMs, which are particularly light and have low approach dimensions, our storage systems fit under almost every roof. A real alternative to a completely new building. The gradual automation of sub-areas with connection to, for example, manual block warehouses makes it possible to economically scale the degree of automation depending on the company’s development. A later expansion is then taken into account to save costs. This makes our automated warehouses future-proof for companies of all sizes.
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