Thursday, January 14, 2010

viastore systems is proud to introduce viastoreblue, energy efficient solutions for your new or existing material handling system.

There are material handling systems running right now with no product on them. Forklifts are traveling without a load, and not consistently on the shortest possible route. In order to really save energy, an intelligent warehouse management system (WMS) should be used. Under the term viastoreblue, viastore systems has developed a concept that does not only record individual energy consumers in the warehouse, but monitors the entire system. Because energy that is not used, is energy saved.

For real energy saving, improvements may include: controlling drive power, recycling wasted energy, reducing movement, designing processes more efficiently or adapting the performance of the entire system to the actual demand.

viastore has developed viastoreblue, an energy efficient solution that evaluates each individual component as well as the entire warehouse. viastoreblue may be implemented as an older facility retrofit or on a warehouse provided by others.

Controlling Drive Power

Starting and stopping of the motors, even energy efficient motors, often uses more energy than just letting them run.

Energy can be saved, however, by reducing the drive power in periods when the maximum performance is not required, or by switching the system into a stand-by mode.

Recycling Wasted Energy

Specific to your Storage/Retrieval system, energy that is radiated as heat in the braking resistor while the S/R machine is braking or lowering may be reused by adding a unit to refeed the energy back into the base and hoist of the system.

Reducing Movement

Through more efficient distribution models, goods that are high movers can be located near the center of a pick aisle for the most efficient use of energy. Likewise, slow movers can be stored closer to the end of the aisle. This model may be kept up to date through the use of an intelligent WMS by providing it with key figures.

Route optimized travel strategies for both forklifts and AS/RS may also be configured through your WMS by predetermined key figures.

Designing Processes more Efficiently

viastoreblue optimizes the cargo capacity of trucks by planning how the load is to be stacked. A suitable WMS helps you to pre-calculate the exact size of the box. The use of a carton erector or a machine that produces boxes to dimension would reduce travel time and CO2 emissions.

In many cases, no more than ten percent of the shipping package is filled with the product packaging; the rest is padding material, thus expensively produced waste. The goal is to reduce packed air to a minimum. Using viastoreblue, a WMS can analyze key figures and calculate how much air is being shipped.

Adapting the Performance of the Entire Warehouse

With viastoreblue, your system is intelligently adaptable to your required performance. Your systems can be adapted from the standby level to the full speed level, either manually from the control station or automatically via your WMS viad@t that controls the conveyor system and the storage and retrieval machines.

viastore systems, Inc.

viastore systems, Inc., the North American headquarters of viastore systems GmbH headquartered in Stuttgart (Germany), has been among the leading international system providers of turnkey automated material handling systems, of warehouse management systems, conveyor systems, material flow and process control, and of storage and retrieval machines, for 40 years.

viastore is an SAP Special Expertise Partner Supply Chain Management (LES and EWM).

A modern WMS can calculate how much air is shipped in the box, thus providing information for an appropriate response.

The automated storage of pallets, for instances, is achieved by means of storage and retrieval machines that are equipped with energy-saving technology as a standard.

Empty travels and unnecessarily long travels have to be avoided whenever possible for the sake of an efficient handling of energy and costs. This can be achieved by means of an intelligent WMS.