Careers
Barcelona, September 1st 2011.
Mecalux, a world leader in the storage systems market, will fully automate the silo warehouse that DISALFARM has in Rubi (Barcelona province).
The pharmaceutical sector logistics company has a warehouse with a built surface area of 12,000 m2 and can store 20,000 pallets. Over the next few months Mecalux will install automatic trilateral stacker cranes, allowing DISALFARM to treble the speed at which goods move, up from the current 110 pallets to 390 pallets per hour.
The automatic trilateral stacker cranes are controlled by a computer program, the EasyWMS® software, and do not need to be operated by a man on board, as is the situation with the VNA trucks currently used in the DISALFARM warehouse. The automatic trilateral stacker cranes are the perfect solution for automating conventional shelving up to 15 metres high, since they have an integrated trilateral extraction system. In addition, they are very simple to install because they just need a system of rails on the ground to be able to move between shelves.
The stacker cranes follow orders from the EasyWMS® management software, which allows for the storing of pallets to be controlled, from stock status to real-time order control. The software reduces errors as well as the time spent on the tasks generally required to manage the warehouse. As a result, the company can improve delivery times and make better use of its physical and human resources.
According to Mecalux Vice-Chairman, Javier Carrillo, “in the pharmaceutical sector it is vitally important to respond to customers quickly and efficiently. That is why the complete automation of the DISALFARM warehouse will clearly improve the current service, while simultaneously reducing waiting times”.
DISALFARM
The company began operating in the middle of the year 2000 with the aim of becoming a leading organisation in the pharmaceutical distribution sector. DISALFARM is a logistics firm created by the laboratories Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Novartis to concentrate their national storage and distribution operations for pharmaceutical specialities.
In the Rubi logistics centre an operator was initially responsible for moving the pallets using VNA and frontal trucks. Some years later, in 2008, the company partially automated the warehouse, removing the frontal trucks and installing conveyor belts with rollers in the shelving conveyor systems.
DISALFARM has now taken things a step further and decided to fully automate the warehouse, replacing the VNA trucks with MT0 stacker cranes. As a result, all the movements will take place automatically, including the entry of pallets in the warehouse and their placing on the shelves, as well as their removal.