The company

Ferriere di Stabio is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and leader in Europe in the cold forging of stainless steel components and nickel alloys, adding precision machining where necessary.

The company has extensive experience in high temperature and corrosion resistance applications. The reference customers are automotive OEMs and their tier-one suppliers. Ferriere di Stabio is a “solution provider” for the latest applications such as electric vehicles, and supplier of components for the aerospace industry.

Goal

The automatic warehouse, built in the 90s, had long had obvious shortcomings both in terms of reliability and performance, some electronic components were now out of production and above all the implementation of the new company ERP required the creation of a new interface.

Realization

After some inspections and the subsequent feasibility analysis, it was decided to intervene on several fronts:

• Software: both software has been replaced: both PLC software and WMS/WCS.
• Electronics: the PLCs, the communication system, some drives and encoders have been replaced.
• Mechanics: careful maintenance and replacement of some pieces (for some of which did not even have drawings) was carried out, as well as the revision of the telescopic forks of the stacker cranes.

The implementation of the WMS / WCS has been determined to interface with the new ERP (Microsft Dynamics) in order to obtain a solid and widespread integration and promptly respond to the rules of order preparation that in this sector more than in others are several, very strict, and vary often and quickly.

The automatic warehouse takes charge of the finished product through an AGV on rails that collects the UDC of finished product from the packaging lines to convey it to the weighing / labeling and wrapping line, from which it then rises at altitude towards the loading bays of the warehouse which consists of a single-depth shelf, distributed on two corridors served by as many telescopic fork stacker cranes.

The product is then extracted from the warehouse to be transported to the picking bays where the picking orders are processed and the UDS are prepared which are stored again in the warehouse waiting to be shipped. In some cases, picking is relocated to some picking stations outside the automated warehouse. In these cases, the pallets of finished product are extracted from a side exit of the warehouse located at the roller conveyor connecting the two stacker cranes. The UDCs extracted for picking are transported to the destination picking area via front trolley and are subsequently returned to the warehouse where a special entrance bay is reintroduced.

All operations, even those outside the automated warehouse, are governed and tracked by the WMS.

At the end of the warehouse, near the loading docks of the trucks, are the exit transports of the UDC.

Benefits

• Automatic mechanical warehouse restoration
• Restoration of defective or obsolete electronic components.
• Implementation of communication by ethernet
• Optimize automated warehouse performance
• Integration with enterprise ERP
• Implementation of new WMS processes
• Extension of the warehouse to storage areas and picking stations on the ground
• Reduction of shipping errors
• Compliance with strict UDS preparation and labeling rules imposed by the market
• Real-time monitoring of the achievement of daily objectives