Simulation as a basis for capacity planning

For extending its existing high-bay warehouse, Gropper Dairy, Bissingen, relied on the know-how of the Krones material flow experts. Due to its soaring growth in recent years, the plant has had to significantly upsize and modernise the capacities of its high-bay warehousing operation. As part of a comprehensive corporate make-over, the triple-aisle high-bay warehouse, commissioned as recently as 1998, was to be brought up to the latest state of the art, in regard to both its capacity and speed, and to the control system and SAP integration as well.
The engineering basis was provided by professional simulation studies performed with Krones simulation tools: the customer´s data were incorporated for comparing the planning conditions with operational realities. This allowed for bottleneck calculation and process optimisation before the construction work was even started. The simulation accurately forecast the performance capabilities of the conveyors, so that the expansion project could be planned in detail.