The Shanghai distribution centre was opened in 2000 – measuring a total of 12,000 square metres of storage space back then, while today storage space measures more than 22,000 sqm. Around 6,800 different products are stored here on some 25,000 pallet slots. Currently just under 160 people are employed at the Shanghai location, achieving sales of approx. EUR 600 million in 2012.

To ensure the smooth functioning of logistics at the Shanghai distribution centre, Schneider Electric selected Jungheinrich as its partner. Jungheinrich, whose head office in China is also located in Shanghai, offered not just efficiency, but also quality – not just in terms of its trucks, but also in terms of its service. “Jungheinrich’s reaction times are excellent,” reports Lei Leo Yang. “So far they have never failed to keep their ‘4-hour promise’, which is definitely praiseworthy!”

A look inside the Schneider Electric warehouse makes clear just how crucial it is to have high-quality, reliable trucks. The 14 docking stations there are bustling with activity. Jungheinrich EJC 110 electric high-platform trucks scurry back and forth between the lorries being unloaded and the incoming goods area. Every now and then a hand pallet truck comes into the picture. “We are currently in the process of replacing all of these with electric high-platform trucks,” says Yang, adding that efficiency alone was a key motivating factor.

The incoming goods are processed with the aid of computers. The barcodes on the goods are scanned and the resulting information fed into an in-house warehouse management system, which assigns the optimum storage slot for each item. Reach trucks then come to pick up the readied goods and transport them to one of the 60-meter long rack aisles, with racks up to 9 meters tall.

Quality also plays a role in storing and order picking the goods at the Shanghai distribution centre. Twenty Jungheinrich ETV 214 reach trucks guarantee not only smooth operations in the warehouse, but also efficient throughput. This series was introduced in 2011 at CeMAT in Hanover, Germany, the world’s leading fair for intralogistics. One of the key features of this generation of trucks is a roughly 10 percent higher throughput rate. “This is essentially the result of faster lifting and lowering speeds as well as substantially improved drive acceleration for this stacker,” comments Alexander Özbahadir, Managing Director of Jungheinrich Lift Truck (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. “Despite the higher throughput rate, we were still able to reduce energy consumption by a further 10 percent compared with the previous model, which was already extremely eco-friendly.”