Beverage sector companies of all kinds need to enhance their intralogistics to gain efficiencies that can be passed on to their customers .
and therefore customers , need not encounter stock shortages . The compact lane layout – both in racking width and height – provides high levels of storage density and makes optimum use of the available airspace in a warehouse . The increase in floor space utilisation over conventional racking can be as high as 60 %. Perhaps most importantly , particularly during peaks , live storage enables sufficient replenishment quantities to avoid the risk of order picking downtime from running out of stock . This is particularly important for products such as mineral water , soft drinks , wine and beer that can see demand scale up rapidly during peaks .
Craft solutions
Wholesalers are businesses where it is not unusual to supply hundreds of outlets and have up a 1000 different product lines , all of which must be stored in FIFO order to comply with best-before dates . They will find Live Storage to be a cost effective solution – especially when compared to automated storage and retrieval .
But the dynamic beverage sector also includes a growing multitude of small producers driven by the
popularity of craft ales , spirits and soft drinks . Many of these producers , such as increasingly popular microbreweries , will have a customer facing environments , where products can be picked by the customers themselves , without help from shop assistants .
Small independent brewers seem , on the whole , to be overcoming the mounting pressures , spurred on by the demand for craft beers . The recently launched Craft Beer Report from the Society of Independent Brewers ( SIBA ) showed 40 % of independent craft breweries now have a taproom ( up 10 % on 2022 ) and that on average 27 % of an independent brewery ’ s income now comes from sales direct to consumers via their taprooms , brewery shop or web shop – a huge increase for an industry historically heavily reliant on pub sales . For these operations , live storage lanes with a front incline are ideal for single bottle picking , whereas straight lanes are preferred for picking case loads .
Beverage sector companies of all kinds need to enhance their intralogistics to gain efficiencies that can be passed on to their customers . They want high volume utilisation from compact storage , a reduction of expensive storage surface , separate loading and picking aisles , improved staff efficiency and a constant availability of goods . They also want easy control of sell by dates , call of quantities and production batches and the elimination of idle times due to items being unavailable at the pick face . As a technique to deliver all of this , they would be well-advised to further explore live storage .
Examples from the German market
Pallet Live Storage will also interest wholesalers . Take for example a system installed by German beverage wholesaler Fristo , a medium-sized company that has been successfully operating beverage stores for over 50 years and has more than 228 outlets .
With the goal of greater order processing efficiency , an intralogistics solution was implemented at its logistics hub to ensure the continuous supply of 31 stores in the southern Baden region of the country with 200,000 beverage cases per month . More than 965 different product lines must be stored in FIFO order to comply with best-before dates .
Another German drinks wholesaler with a long tradition in the trade is , Getränke Essmann GmbH . It supplies more than 2,000 beverage varieties to customers in the retail , catering , beverage wholesale and other services sectors from several logistics centres in Northern Germany . Due to the increasing variety of reference lines , it was necessary to expand warehouse capacities , while ensuring permanent access to all fast-moving items . Seasonal sales fluctuations had to be considered in the planning phase . In addition , an efficient solution was sought to streamline time-consuming picking of individual items .
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