Automatic distribution
Introduction
An automated warehouse or automated warehouse consists of automating all or most of the tasks carried out within a warehouse, which is a physical space for the storage of goods within the supply chain.[1].
It is a storage system specially designed for logistics solutions that allow maximizing productivity ratios, reducing the necessary space and the number of movements.
Said storage can be adapted to different environments, depending on the sector and activity of the warehouse, and the facilities can be adapted to, for example, cold and/or frozen environments.
From a strict point of view, an automatic warehouse could only be considered one in which the products are not handled by any person from the entry dock to the exit dock. This definition today would lead us to be able to consider automatic warehouses only as lung warehouses, that is, those warehouses where the references enter and leave in the same packaging unit, without any picking operation on the references, that is, those warehouses where there is no process of breaking the packaging for the references oriented to the extraction of part of the quantity of a reference stored in a specific position. That is why this name is also accepted for those warehouses where the stowage and extraction process is carried out by automated machinery.[2].
Automatic storage type
Depending on the characteristics of each warehouse, automatic storage can be composed of:.
• - Stacker crane: stacker cranes are designed for the automatic storage of products of all types of size and weight. Stacker cranes that work with pallets or pallets are known as Unit Load and stacker cranes that work with smaller packages, such as boxes and trays, are better known as Mini Load.
• - Horizontal carousel: Horizontal rotating storage systems, which present the stored merchandise to the operator. Horizontal carousels allow you to optimize the space required and prepare more than one order simultaneously.
• - Vertical carousel: Vertical rotating storage systems. The carousels present the stored merchandise to the operator. In addition, it allows you to optimize the space required by making use of all the height available in the warehouse.
• - Vertical Automatic Warehouse): The vertical automatic warehouse, also known as vertical shuttle or vertical cabinet, transfers the products directly to the operator, but in this case, using an internal central stacker crane.