Automated Warehouse Expands Without Operational Downtime

Landguth Heimtiernahrung GmbH has commissioned Jungheinrich to expand the automated vehicle fleet at its distribution centre in Niederlangen, Germany, to increase throughput capacity. This project expands an existing automated narrow-aisle warehouse system implemented by the partners to handle increased material flow requirements without interrupting running warehouse processes. The integration scales up the automated distribution centre to support industrial automation goals.

The cooperation addresses the operational challenge of expanding material handling capacity within a continuous delivery logistics framework. Industrial warehouses require scalable architectures that adapt to business growth without causing system downtime. By combining Jungheinrich's automated guided vehicles and autonomous mobile robots with Landguth's warehouse management infrastructure, the partnership provides a technical solution that allows system scalability under active operational conditions.

The technical solution expands an existing automated narrow-aisle warehouse, known as an AutoVNA system, which contains 34 aisles with 58,152 storage spaces spanning an aisle length of 95 metres and a storage height of 9.70 metres. The expansion adds four automated EKX 516ka narrow-aisle trucks to the existing fleet, which handle storage and retrieval operations in the high-bay racking via conductor rails. Additionally, eight arculee M autonomous mobile robots are integrated into the system, bringing the total fleet size to sixteen autonomous mobile robots. These robots navigate autonomously to move pallets between the pallet conveyor systems and the narrow-aisle warehouse.

System coordination is managed by the Jungheinrich Warehouse Control System, which interfaces directly with the Warehouse Management System of Landguth. This software architecture controls the autonomous fleet during a 16/5 operational schedule, managing transport tasks and regulating automatic battery charging intervals for the mobile units between assignments. Jungheinrich is responsible for the delivery, system integration, and software alignment of the additional vehicles into the active digital infrastructure.

This scalable automation architecture allows the deployment of new hardware into the existing material flow system with minimal modification to the stationary physical infrastructure. The primary application area is the automated pet food distribution sector, where process stability and continuous supply chain throughput are required. The operational benefit of this implementation methodology is the elimination of operational downtime during system expansion, preserving regular distribution schedules while increasing the maximum daily pallet throughput.

"Landguth's repeat order shows what scalable automation means in practice: a system that grows with the company – without downtime or disruption," says Mathias Salterberg, Logistics Systems Consultant at Jungheinrich.

Edited by Natania Lyngdoh, Induportals editor, assisted by AI.

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