Fully automated, eco-friendly warehouse for Plzeňský Prazdroj

Plzeňský Prazdroj decided to build a new warehouse, in order to keep on using the original recipes and tried-and-tested methods and at the same time facilitate daily routines and guarantee maximum quality levels. The Pilsen brewery had precisely specified requirements for it: The new warehouse should be innovative and fully automated and effectively support the people working there. At the same time, Plzeňský Prazdroj wanted to reduce both costs and CO₂ emissions, increase the storage space available and speed up dispatch of its own bottled and canned beers as well as processes in general.

“Plzeňský Prazdroj knew exactly what they wanted: an innovative, automated warehouse that saves costs and reduces the carbon footprint. A customer request that suits us well: cost-cutting and sustainability are two issues frequently required for the solutions we sell,” Ralf John, Head of Technical Operations at System Logistics, explains. 

For its new, fully automated warehouse, the tradition-steeped brewery has opted for a solution incorporating the latest state of the art from Krones’ subsidiary System Logistics. The result is highly impressive: a new, self-contained high-bay warehouse measuring 10,000 square metres and providing approximately 16,000 pallet slots. That is roughly equivalent to 18 million bottles of beer, which means the brewery has 20 percent more storage capacity. Ten storage and retrieval units, each of which can transport two pallets, move the pallets into and out of the pallet slots. An automatic monorail with a total of 28 travelling carriages, which is 500 metres long, takes the fulls from the bottling hall to the warehouse, thus saving both space and transport costs.

The beer is automatically transported from the warehouse to the dispatch area as required. Since it is now possible to retrieve up to 290 pallets per hour from their slots, dispatch capacity has risen by 50 per cent. Ecological considerations have also been factored into the design of all these improvements. For example: reduction in CO₂ emissions (around 500 tons of CO₂ less per year) because using a monorail makes for a significantly smaller number of pollutant-emitting fork-lift trucks. What’s more, the storage and retrieval units are fitted with a state-of-the-art energy recovery system.

Since we’d already been informed about plans for a future warehouse expansion, we’ve been able to factor that into our concept and minimise even now any possible effects a future expansion job (Phase 2) might have on daily operation. This enabled us to come up with a solution extending beyond tomorrow. Ralf JohnHead of Technical Operations, System Logistics