Automated handling helps optimise space and efficiency

The ASRS takes components from multi-level storage racking to the production area with minimal manual handling and replenishes stock, which has freed floor space for production and improved safety and efficiency.

The racking can store 20,000+ trays of products in two sizes and is served by 14 multi-level shuttles in four of the aisles and a single mini-load crane in the central fifth aisle. This design has a potential throughput of 770 trays/h to picking stations where items for each order are assembled. Totes with completed orders are delivered by conveyor to a specific drop point in the assembly area. 

The ASRS system also enables 185 trays/h to be delivered from an incoming induction area into the racking. The shuttles and crane are compact and fast-moving, allowing Lear to have the maximum amount of storage while also achieving the throughput required. All products can be stored in all parts of the system.  

The Gebhardt warehouse control system controls all high-level functions in the automation, such as the routing of the trays on the ASRS and the conveyor systems, the location of the trays in the ASRS, the linking of products with the tray identification, and it manages HMI screens on the system.