Kellner & Kunz is going on the offensive with the expansion of its logistics centre in Wels, Austria. Together with the logistics software specialist inconso GmbH, the realisation phase for the 23,000m2 building extension has begun, by means of which the leading company of the RECA Group is comprehensively modernising existing logistic processes.
For the new building, consisting of a high bay warehouse with 15,400 pallet locations and 200,000 container locations, the company chose an efficient warehouse management system and warehouse control system from inconso. Loading and shipping of about 2,800 daily deliveries to commercial and industrial companies throughout Austria and eastern Europe will be controlled fully automatically by Kellner & Kunz with inconsoWMS and inconsoWCS.
Through the sale of high-quality tools and bolts, as well as extensive C-parts management services for handcrafting and industry, Kellner & Kunz AG has been experiencing steady growth for years. The Group’s last turnover was €273.2 million, an increase of almost 12% compared to 2017. Accordingly, the capacities of the current logistics centre in Wels are reaching their limits. Kellner & Kunz is investing €45 million to add a three-story functional building not far from the existing facility.
When the plant is finished, Kellner & Kunz will continue to rely on highly automated processes. The C-parts specialist stores over 120,000 different positions that can be transparently monitored with inconsoWMS. The company currently supplies more than 60,000 customers in Austria and eleven foreign subsidiaries from Wels and delivery up to the production line is becoming commonplace.
The technical components used for material flows from goods receipt to shipping are special features of the project. These include electric floor conveyors and driverless transport systems for the transport of pallets, container conveyor components in the automatic storage and retrieval systems and shuttle areas (shipping lanes, conveyors, carton erectors, conveyor technology) and sequencing components for handling the pre-picked order containers.
Driverless transport systems are also planned to enable an efficient interplay of the existing and extended building areas for controlling the transport of pre-picked goods from inventory into the new building and replenishment from the existing and the new high bay warehouse. In addition to classic order processing for handicraft and industry customers, the site’s logistics include Kanban delivery, customer specific labelling processes and consolidated goods shipping. In the future, orders for the existing plant will also be controlled via inconsoWMS.
With the new software landscape, Keller & Kunz is able to maintain its high performance standards. In the course of the expansion, the company also relies on the ‘human factor’. People with various disabilities first worked in the barrier-free service centre in 2012. Today, about 100 people with disabilities assemble the assembly sets. The company is particularly proud of this and showcases what the logistics of the future can look like.
Biog
Will joined Fastener + Fixing Magazine in 2007 and over the last 15 years has experienced every facet of the fastener sector - interviewing key figures within the industry and visiting leading companies and exhibitions around the globe.
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