Wednesday, 03. March 2010

State-of-the-art logistics center opens in Russia

In early February 2010, a new central distribution and logistics center in Pokrov, near Moscow, commenced operations. It was planned and realized by Bayer Technology Services (BTS). In the future, this site will handle all shipments in Russia from BHC with the exception of Bayer Animal Health. The consolidation of all of the previous sites in this one facility will reduce logistics costs and noticeably improve the quality of logistics services.

The project was completed on time for the start of operations despite the challenging environment. Particularly impressive were the substantial cost savings of roughly €500,000 realized during the execution phase. Stefan von Massow (BTS-PMT-Supply Chain & Logistics), technical project manager, explained that this outstanding result would not have been possible without the extremely hard work of the entire international project team and the excellent cooperation with BHC Technical Support and the local organization. Close cooperation with local personnel is essential given the conditions at the site. This confirmed business project manager Dmitri Kirpatovski (Head of Logistics Department BHC Russia), who made a major contribution to the success of the project.

Latest technology for sensitive products

The high-bay warehouse with 5,000 pallet spaces was configured as a narrow-aisle warehouse with eight levels and two placement-and-retrieval units. In addition to the stringent technical requirements associated with such a configuration, consideration also had to be given to the special requirements of sensitive products such as Levitra and Kogenate. These were addressed by configuring special storage areas as cold storage and secure storage zones. A proven warehouse management system (WMS) used at Bayer CropScience was adapted under the direction of BTS to the specific requirements of BHC. A special technical highlight is the transponder-guided, semi-automatic navigation system for manually operated high-bay placement and retrieval units, which is making its debut here. With this system, the operator needs only to give a run command to be guided along an optimal line by means of simultaneous horizontal and vertical movements to the specified pallet space. After another release by the operator, the pallet is placed into or removed from the bay. Use of the system enabled a significant increase in the number of cycles (number of placement/retrieval operations per unit time). This results in substantial operating cost savings. The navigation system receives the information it needs, such as aisle number, level number and bay number, from the WMS, which required the development of a special data interface.