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Case Study | Co-operative Migros Zurich | Switzerland

Migros is the largest Swiss retail company with 631 stores in Switzerland. The company is a conglomerate of various co-operatives, public limited companies and charities that together form the Migros community. The core business is food retail, which accounts for just over 60 % of the concern turnover, and is embodied through the Migros stores of the regional co-operatives.

Migros Zurich was founded in 1941 and today has a membership of about 314,000 in the co-operative. The economic region for the co-operative Migros Zurich (GMZ) covers most of the Zurich Canton and the entire Canton Glarus. North of Lake Zurich, the bordering communities of the Cantons St. Gallen and Schwyz are also included. Among other things, 98 Migros points-of-sale, 32 speciality markets and 47 food-service locations can be found in these areas. With more than 8,600 employees, Migros Zurich is one of the most important employers in the region, with a turnover of about 2.5 billion Swiss franks per year.

Case Study

Fully Automated Standard Tray PickingCo-operative Migros Zurich | Switzerland

FAST (Fully Automated Standard Tray) Picking Solution

KNAPP.com | solution provider

Case Study | Co-operative Migros Zurich | Switzerland

The challenge

Depalletizing

At the Zurich location, every day up to 400 fruit and vegetable articles are supplied in standard Migros containers, collapsible crates of external pool suppliers as well as cartons of various dimensions. Cumbersome picking of the heavy store units (up to 30 kg) by the employee should no longer be done manually. Instead, processes should run as economically as possible from goods-in to goods-out. The physical and logistical features of fresh articles, which require gentle handling and cleanliness and which have problematic delivery cycles, must be taken into account. Special focus is on error-free and volume-optimized picking, product-related traceability of dispatch pallets and the shop-friendly construction of pallets (optimized sequencing of all articles on a dispatch pallet).

The solutionIn Zurich, all fresh products in either Migros containers, collapsible crates or standard cartons will be fully-automatically depalletized, stored and palletized according to the stores. The core of the system is a 4-aisle OSR Shuttle™ system and newly developed destacking and stacking modules.

Integration of the system into the existing building required an especially compact construction, which is one of the quality marks of the OSR Shuttle™. The complete system was erected on just about 2,000 m² floor space, without having to make any compromises to ease of servicing and maintenance.

During goods-in, the full pallets are automatically depalettized and the products are positioned in trays and temporarily stored in a fast buffering system – the OSR Shuttle™. The use of separate trays and the newly developed tray emptying system for washing makes the operation very clean. After order start, a stacking algorithm calculates the ideal sequence for the various container types relative to stability, shop-friendly delivery and packing density on the load carrier. Based on this, the containers are conveyed to the stacker for order-related pallet construction. Configurable palletizing criteria enable consistent quality and are aimed at a 100% error-free delivery.

Destacking and tray loading

KNAPP.com | solution provider

Case Study | Co-operative Migros Zurich | Switzerland

OSR ShuttleTM

Warehouse in detail During the goods-in procedure the original pallets are placed on a pre-storage conveyor by a warehouse vehicle, and registered in the system. After checks of the pallet itself and of the contours of the stack, the pallets are transported to the automatic depalletizing and destacking station.

Destacking areaIn the first step, the pallets are separated from the containers and conveyed to an empty pallet stacker. The container stacks are conveyed on modular belts, separated into two container stacks for two parallel destacking machines. There the two stacks each enter a lift in a frame tower, which lifts the stack and then destacks it layer by layer. The destacking procedure is efficient, because two trays can be loaded with product at the same time. Here, the infeed line for the empty trays and the clamping and pushing mechanism are precisely synchronized to convey the articles quickly but gently to the trays. The level of stacking can vary depending on the type of container, and can be up to 4 containers. The now loaded trays are then stored in their allocated storage area in the OSR Shuttle™.

OSR Shuttle™When all the store orders are in, the order data from the Migros ERP system is transmitted to the KNAPP warehouse management software (KiSoft WCS). Taking into account all the container and product data, a stacking algorithm is used to calculate a retrieval strategy.

The products are retrieved from the OSR Shuttle™ according to the stacking sequence and transported to the buffer lanes. Each buffer lane holds the exact amount of products needed to build an order stack. The right sequence for stacking is given in the buffer lane.

StackingIf all products for the building of a complete order pallet are present, the line of containers is conveyed to the stacking module which, due to its functionality, can also be a picking module. At Migros Zurich four newly developed stackers are used, where two machines are supplied by one of the two conveyor levels. The system is designed for complete redundancy which provides the maximum operational reliability.

The special new design of the stack portal wins a decisive advantage for the customer: Without any technical adjustments along with standard crates, collapsible crates, and even fruit and vegetable cartons can be stably picked. The variation in pallet building is almost without limits. Various containers can be combined with each other, when the stacking criteria are considered, and stacked into compact pallets for the stores. The high packing density that results reduces the need for space on the trucks and, above all, in the stores. Not only the various different containers but also the wide product spectrum are gently picked. This ranges from containers with 30 kg total weight to very sensitive items such as eggs.

Stacking

KNAPP.com | solution provider

Case Study | Co-operative Migros Zurich | Switzerland

KNAPP.com | solution provider

Key dataIndustry Food retail, distribution of fresh products

Solution FAST (Fully Automated Standard Tray) Picking

Location Zurich, Switzerland

Built-up storage area 2,000 m2

Ambient temperatures Cold-storage area 10 - 14 °C

Number of articles 400 different kinds of fresh products (fruit/vegetables)

Crate types Plastic (reusable) 70 %, carton (disposable) 30 %

Core components OSR Shuttle™ with 4 rack lines, 10 levels and 7,840 locations, special machines for stacking and destacking

Performance

30,000 trading units (TU) per dayDepalletizing: 80 pallets/hourPalletizing: 60 pallets/hourCrate destackers: 2,000 TU/hCrate stackers: 1,800 TU/h

Software KiSoft WCS, KiSoft Command, KiSoft Transport, KiSoft SRC

Transport securityAt the end of the process, the completed pallets are secured for transport with a banderole and then conveyed to a label applicator, which puts an address label on the pallet. The pallets, now ready

for dispatch, are transported via pallet conveyor system to a pick-up point and there taken up on a warehouse vehicle by an employee, who transports the pallet to goods-out.

Ground-level take-up of the completed pallets Shop-friendly order pallets

KNAPP Logistics Automation, Inc.A member of KNAPP group

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