To shorten delivery times of long stock to its customers, Friedrich Kicherer GmbH — one of the largest steel stockholders in Germany — installed a Unicompact storage and distribution system from Kasto (www.kasto.com) in a new purpose-built unit in Ellwangen.

Three KastoWin F bandsaws have been integrated into the system. Eberhard Frick, managing partner of Kicherer, said: “We had a great range of materials, but it was taking far too long to load the lorries.

We needed something that was significantly faster than our existing stacking cradle system.

To optimise material flow as well as increase storage capacity, we decided to build a second steel centre and approached two potential suppliers of bar storage warehouses — one being Kasto, with which we have had a successful relationship for more than 20 years.”

Employing more than 350 people, Kicherer ships some 210,000 tonnes of steel per year.

Six pre-existing automatic storage systems from Kasto and 44 cranes in the original steel centre support the operation.

The first Kasto store was installed in 1995, and over the years this was supplemented by racking systems for tubes, stacking cradles for structural steel profiles, angles and boiler tubes — plus a Uniline 3.0 sheet metal store with 610 cassettes.

These investments were mostly driven by the objective of expanding the range and providing faster deliveries.

Kasto was selected for the latest project to supply the new bar storage system with a central loading station, linked to the stockholder’s IT system.

The system is based on a 115m-long x 15m-high automatic honeycomb storage system with space for more than 10,000 cassettes — each able to accommodate 3.4 tonnes of material up to 6m long.

Fast storage and retrieval of stock is achieved with five cranes travelling at up to 180m/min along three aisles of racking; and to transport picked materials to the loading station automatically, Kasto installed two manipulators on separate rails.

From these, the bar stock travels to one of 25 loading stations via a conveyor.

Kicherer tracks its steel profiles through the store using QR codes.

Every bundle that has been picked is scanned again on loading, and its status is automatically entered into the material requirements planning software for full traceability.