Sustainable Retrofit for Future-Oriented Book Distribution

Vereinigte Verlagsauslieferung (VVA), a part of Arvato, has modernized its 40-year-old high-bay pallet warehouse in Gütersloh-without interrupting operations. The comprehensive upgrade, completed in under a year with Stöcklin Logistik AG, enhances performance while reducing energy consumption and maintenance costs.

Fact Check

Vereinigte Verlagsauslieferung (VAA)/Arvato, Gütersloh

Project focus

Complete modernization of the over 40-year-old pallet high-bay warehouse due to signs of fatigue

Scope

Replacement of the complete old storage and retrieval system and Installation of the latest systems for the 14-aisle, 34 m high pallet high-bay warehouse

Benefits

20 % more power, 30 % less energy, faster repairs and better operational readiness thanks to networked camera surveillance - without new construction

Highlights

Replacement of the fourteen 16-ton storage and retrieval units over the hall roof - work with heavy-duty crane to the centimeter, while bearing and forwarding operations continued

Precise - Planned - Future-proof

Modernization with Maximum Efficiency

In order to continue shipping over 100 million books a year in a sustainable, future-proof and efficient manner, Vereinigte Verlagsauslieferung (VVA), part of Arvato, has fundamentally modernized its forty-year-old high-bay pallet warehouse at the Gütersloh site in less than a year. This storage facility alone holds 60,000 euro pallets and stores and retrieves around 2,500 pallets on average every day.

Step-by-Step Replacement During Ongoing Operations

The world's largest fully automated storage facility in the 1970s - still the core system of its Westphalian logistics center today - was to be equipped for the coming decades through intelligent investment in the latest, energy-efficient plant and control technology. Despite the challenges, the modernization was completed on schedule, without interruptions, and with flexible adaptations based on customer needs.

At the beginning of 2023, Arvato decided in favor of intralogistics engineering and implementation expertise from Stöcklin. From March 2023 to January 2024, three aisles each were equipped with new drive rails and 14 high-performance Stöcklin MASTer42 RBG within nine weeks during ongoing operations.

The solution involved dismantling the disused stacker cranes, each of which was 34 meters high and weighed 16 tons, in the hall and removing them through the open roof using a heavy-duty crane - and bringing the new devices through the roof into the bearing, component by component, in order to assemble them there.

Many years of retrofit expertise, the partnership-based cooperation of all parties involved and a high degree of in-house production by Stöcklin at its engineering center in Laufen (CH) were the basis for successfully overcoming all difficulties. The total modernization phase ran without interruption and with customer adjustments during the construction phase.

The Special issues were the Replacement of the Stacker cranes in five Steps during the ongoing Operation, without any market impact. The individual project steps were professionally planned and implemented by both VVA and Stöcklin.

Harald Horstmann, VAA Head of Engineering/Logistics

Customer Benefits

With new rack operation, 20 percent more storage and retrieval capacity is possible in the high-bay warehouse with 60,000 pallet spaces. Thanks to intelligent DC link coupling (which makes electricity generated from braking energy directly available to other Drive units) and a newly developed sinusoidal energy recovery system, more than 12 percent energy can now be fed back into the grid and a total of 30 percent energy can be saved. Cameras on the stacker cranes now enable visually supported operational monitoring and accelerated fault clearance in the event of a problem.

We develop and manufacture almost the entire plant and control technology under one roof at the Engineering Center in Laufen. As a result, the project benefited from reliably good quality and lean processing, even under adverse conditions.

Urs Hasler, responsible project manager at Stöcklin

Why Choose a Stöcklin Retrofit Solution

Experience as a manufacturer and provider of complete intralogistics solutions

Expertise from many complex, extensive retrofit/modernization projects

Customized, future-proof solution for your old systems, planned and implemented

Complete replacement for system technology and system control from our own production

Reworking in our own workshop at the Laufen engineering center

Service management also for overhauled annexes

Integrated, cyber-secure controller

Sustainable investment, total length of service life, low TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)

We will be happy to answer your requests for retrofit and modernization solutions for your plant in person

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