Nögel stores and picks goods for its customers from trade and industry in six halls in Twist, Lower Saxony. The full-range supplier of assembly and fastening technology stocks 45,000 different items for window construction and the building trade. The deliveries are prepared for dispatch on six packing lines, with around 1,500 parcels and several truckloads of pallets leaving the company headquarters every day for destinations all over the world. "By switching from centralized, end-to-end order picking to decentralized order picking with subsequent fully automated consolidation of orders, we hope to achieve significantly faster and more effective order picking," explains Henning Stolte, Authorized Representative Purchasing and Logistics. Picking boxes are parked in a multi-level shuttle using automated conveyor technology and automatically retrieved when they are complete. The new logistics system with radio-controlled data technology is intended to further increase the already high delivery reliability of more than 98%.

Over 25,000 storage location labels for storage aids and pallets
A prerequisite for the reorganization of picking areas and high-bay warehouses was uniform labelling throughout. The more than 25,000 labels from ONK are compatible with the new Android-based scanners from Nögel. In the high-bay warehouse, the 8,000 pallet spaces spread over ten levels were marked with colored multi-level labels. Affixed to the lowest cross beam, a multi-level label depicts all the storage locations above it. Each shelf level is assigned both an individual bar code and a color code. The order picker can therefore scan even high shelf levels from the floor and still pick the goods from the upper shelves. "This makes order picking faster," says Stolte, "and less error-prone despite the display of several levels on one label. On the one hand, because each level has its own color, and on the other hand, because the barcodes arranged next to each other on the label are rotated. This increases the order pickers' concentration during the scanning process."

Thanks to end-to-end identification, Nögel can identify small parts in storage aids just as quickly and accurately as larger items on pallets. © Nögel Montagetechnik Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH

ONK has also labeled the storage locations in the narrow-aisle warehouse and fast-moving items area. "Thanks to consistent identification, we can identify small parts in storage aids just as quickly and accurately as larger items on pallets," says Stolte. "With ONK, we had the right partner at our side. ONK not only handled our orders flexibly, but also delivered quickly and installed the labels directly on site."

Further information can be found here.