Delivering the goods

You want a new television or food processor or a case of bottled water. You go online. Click. You look outside for the delivery truck. It couldn’t be simpler…. to you. Between the click and the knock on your door, a flurry of activity occurs. Your credit card account is debited, paperwork is generated, a box is moved out of storage, labelled and queued for pickup. New stock moves along the supply chain to replace it.
Much of this happens without human intervention. Orders made online are routed electronically to large warehouses for processing. Austria’s LTW Intralogistics GmbH designs and builds automated storage and racking systems – up to 40 meters high, even more - that streamline the operations of these high bay warehouses in the B2C world. LTW’s warehouse automation supports a fast, reliable and seamless flow of materials and makes optimum use of warehouse capacity right up to the ceiling. Warehouse automation for any size operation
LTW’s customized systems cover all aspects of these partially or fully automated warehousing systems, including controls for integrated stackers as well as conveyors, turntables and order picking systems and can be scaled for just about any size operation. (LTW also builds fully automated, multi-storey parking garages using the same proven technology platform). All design, programming and manufacturing of the control systems, including all electrical content and PLC programming, is performed in house, in EPLAN.
The company has been an enthuiastic supporter of EPLAN Electric P8 since adopting it three years, making great use of the flexibility and automation features that originally attracted it, like the ability to archive and re-use data or manage component inventory or import components from vendors’ electronic catalogues right into project as macros and have all schematics and lists updated automatically. Electric P8 also provides designers with the ability to present all project contents as a single, integrated system which was a great advance for LTW, says Peter Vogel, head of electrical engineering. "That goes from the power supply, to the distribution of all the drive components, to the PLC layout." Incorporating customer comments with a keystroke
LTW has also adopted new features as they come out, like redlining, introduced with Version 1.9 of Electric P8, which allows users to convert all documentation to PDF format for review by customers. Modifications can be re-imported into the project as graphic elements and integrated into the data with ease. PDF comments are displayed in a navigator with a direct jump function into the diagram. The EPLAN user chooses whether a particular modification should be incorporated, and once it is, the entire project is updated automatically. That’s a huge time-saver for LTW considering that in large integrated warehousing systems, all drives are equipped with asynchronous servomotors, which can make for several thousand data points and a document package exceeding 3,000 pages. Redlining also allows the transfer and incorporation of modified data from the manufacturing and assembly space back into that package so LTW is providing customers, sub-contractors and service technicians with documentation that’s truly up to date. “This provides us with a reliable tool to provide the customer with fully updated documentation that reflects the actual state of the installation,” says Vogel. “That makes the technicians’ work in the field much easier.” Many customers and subcontractors also use Electric P8. “Choosing EPLAN – as the market leader – obviously helped a lot and has been a big positive for our customers.”