Layer by Layer

It is noticeably colder when you enter the approximately eleven-metre-high warehouse in Buseck, not far from the university town of Gießen in central Hesse. Numerous forklift trucks are driving around with fully loaded pallets. There is a general bustle about the place, which one would not expect given the cool temperatures. However, once you realise what is going on here, the pace no longer comes as a surprise.

Fresh fruit and vegetables arrive at this warehouse and are prepared for onward transport. The warehouse is owned by EDEKA Handelsgesellschaft Hessenring mbH (Edeka Hessenring). As one of six regional companies, Edeka Hessenring forms part of the EDEKA group, a cooperative association of German independent retailers.

Edeka Hessenring’s sales territory covers Northern and Central Hesse, as well as regional areas extending into Southern Lower Saxony, Northern and Central Thuringia, and Eastern Westphalia. The region therefore stretches from the Upper Harz to the Taunus and from the Siegerland almost to the Saxon border.

To supply its more than 500 supermarkets in this area, Edeka Hessenring operates a 44,000-square-metre central warehouse at its Buseck site. A significant part of this is the already mentioned 11,000-square-metre fresh produce distribution centre. This is where fruit and vegetables from both the domestic market and from abroad arrive; they are stored here and picked for onward transport to the supermarkets. To ensure the produce stays fresh for as long as possible, the fresh produce centre has different climate zones and can be cooled down to four degrees.

A challenging picking process

In this environment, order picking was carried out manually for over ten years. The challenges were not only the temperature, but also the height and weight of the goods to be distributed. In some places, potatoes, peppers and mangoes are stacked over two metres high. Crates containing fruit such as melons, bananas and oranges can weigh up to 15 kilograms. In the past, staff had to pick these crates individually by hand. “It’s not exactly a job people are lining up for,” says Heiko Girnhard, the warehouse manager at Fresh Services in Buseck. He continued: “Particularly at peak times, when several deliveries arrived simultaneously, it was often difficult to have enough staff in the warehouse.” The order-picking process therefore needed to be supported by a suitable industrial truck. The main focus was on reducing the workload on staff. Desired side effect: Reducing downtime and costs.

As part of a long-term demonstration by Toyota Material Handling, major food retailers such as Edeka Hessenring were introduced to a special attachment: the Layermaster – a so-called layer picking machine, developed and manufactured by B&B Attachments, a long-standing KAUP partner in the UK. For the past few years, KAUP has been selling the Layermaster in Germany, amongst other places.

From demonstration to deployment

For the long-term demonstration, Toyota used one of its Traigo electric forklifts. However, this carrier vehicle turned out to be too large for the fresh produce warehouse in Buseck. “Nevertheless, by the end of the demonstration we were convinced by the Layermaster,” sums up Heiko Girnhard. So the right carrier vehicle had to be found. The choice fell on a Toyota BT Staxio SWE200 electric high-lift truck – designed for intensive stacking operations – which, fittingly, comes with low-temperature hydraulic oil as an option. In order to be able to use the vehicle (drawbar forklift) in day-to-day operations, it had to be designed and built by Toyota as a special-purpose machine. This delayed the project somewhat, meaning that it took about a year from the long-term trial to the official launch. The time and effort were well worth it for various reasons. Firstly, the Buseck site serves as a test site for other Edeka fruit centres that also wish to restructure their fruit and vegetable order picking processes. Secondly, and this is an important point that Heiko Girnhard mentions: “We are very pleased with the machine.” Not only has downtime been reduced, but staff satisfaction has also increased. As the logistics expert explains, “Today, our colleagues are delighted that they no longer have to lift heavy crates from great heights.”

The Layermaster Principle

The Layermaster is specifically designed to tackle the challenge faced at Edeka’s fresh produce distribution centre: the fast, safe and efficient picking of crates – layer by layer. Of course, it is also possible to pick up and separate several layers at once. To achieve this, the Layermaster is lowered onto the load from above. Once the correct position has been reached, it grips the goods from all four sides using only minimal pressure. The goods can now be lifted and moved to their destination. To handle goods of varying weights or different types, the attachment is fitted as standard with a multi-stage valve that allows the operator to select up to three pressure settings.