Modernization of high-bay warehouse

CHALLENGE

The high-bay warehouse built in 1980 has a capacity of 3,800 storage locations distributed over eight shelves. Until now, the processes were controlled by means of SIMATIC S5 135U and operated via COROS. Many of the hardware components were already discontinued by the end of the 1990’s and a consistent supply of spare parts was no longer guaranteed.
To ensure the future availability of the high-bay warehouse, it was necessary to modernize the control and drive technology as well as the safety systems.

IMPLEMENTATION

To reduce plant downtimes to a minimum, HEITEC developed a retrofit concept that made it possible to operate the old and new systems in parallel and carry out the conversion step by step. The new drive systems and controllers for the stacker cranes were preassembled and installed on mounting plates for quick replacement.
Before the individual conversion phases were implemented, the system was also built on the computer as a virtual model and tested in real time.
The old controllers were replaced by fail-safe SIMATIC S7-317F controllers and a WinCC client/server solution was used to operate the plant.

CUSTOMER BENEFIT

• Minimal downtime during the conversion
• Increased operating safety and compliance with legally defined safety standards
• Reduced energy costs Increased fault tolerance
• Guaranteed system availability for the next 10 to 15 years

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