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THE CLIENT
H. Leiter GmbH of Berka/Werra, Germany, has gained a renowned reputation for the supply and sorting of beverage empties. Founded in 1979, the 130-strong company offers comprehensive solutions for all areas of the beverage empties trade: from buying and selling of bottles and crates, through packing of flip-top bottles to sorting of empty bottles and recycling of plastic crates. H. Leiter handles the sorting of empties at its own premises within InBev Bremen, securing the added advantage of reduced transport costs. Leiter's principal customer is InBev Deutschland - part of the Interbrew Group, based in Bremen - which, before 1 July 2005, used to be known as Beck & Co. As a leading German export brewery with a global presence, InBev is well known for its considerable logistics and handling needs.
THE REQUIREMENT
InBev Deutschland planned to adapt its decentralised empties sorting process to meet the challenges of the future. The aim was to pre-sort the 8 different bottle types and 10 different crate types as efficiently as possible - even during peak periods - and to remove all third-party bottles during the process. The company wanted to reduce costs while increasing both quality and the average output of the empties sorting process. InBev contracted H. Leiter GmbH with the task of installing a fully automated bottle recognition and sortation system.
THE SOLUTION
Several innovations from KNAPP Systemintegration GmbH were employed to meet the logistics requirements at InBev's empties warehouse in Bremen.
1. High-output destackers/stackers:
Handling 4,200 crates per hour, the destackers/stackers are faster, more efficient and more cost-effective than those usually used in the beverage trade. They remove the individual crates from pallets and stack individual crates onto pallets.
2. Low-impact roller conveyor technology:
To ensure extremely gentle transportation of the drinks crates, the company dispensed with its existing stainless steel conveyor. KNAPP implemented a galvanised, accumulating roller conveyor, which not only resulted in quiet operations but also reduced wear on the high-specification drinks crates to a minimum.
3. Intelligent sorting robot:
The RECOP intelligent sorting robot delivers superior sorting quality and a higher throughput rate. It transforms unsorted crates into crates containing a single type of bottle by replacing the 'odd' bottles with ones of the correct type.
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