With the current commission from Hans Zipperle AG in South Tyrol, ABF is further expanding its role as a technological innovation driver in intralogistics. At its site in Merano, the long-standing family business processes 160,000 tons of fruit into juices and purees as semi-finished goods for the global food industry. In addition, it bottles 3.5 million liters of fruit juice annually for the local market. ABF was commissioned to introduce a forward-looking Forklift Guidance System including a modern Warehouse Management System (WMS) – and is now also opening up the beverage industry as another key sector.
For over 15 years, ABF has been successfully developing and implementing transport guidance systems and solutions for warehouse management in demanding industrial environments. Numerous reference projects in the steel industry – including Georgsmarienhütte, Salzgitter, and voestalpine – document the high performance of the solutions in the production environment. ABF’s intralogistics solutions are also firmly established in the Timber Industry, for example at companies such as Mayr Melnhof Holz, Binderholz, Pfeifer Group, and Finsa.
Building on this experience, ABF is now consistently continuing its growth course and transferring proven as well as new technological approaches to other industries. For instance, a state-of-the-art Forklift Guidance System with RTLS-based real-time localization for managing pallets with crates and barrels is also being introduced at Zipperle. A particular innovation of the project, however, is the use of 3D LiDAR localization for forklifts in indoor and outdoor areas – a globally novel solution. This replaces the complex and error-prone RFID localization previously used at Zipperle while simultaneously achieving a significantly higher degree of accuracy, robustness, and transparency.
In the course of implementation, the existing sensor system will also be expanded and modernized. Material movements will be recorded and booked automatically, precisely, and in real time in the future. Forklifts are precisely localized at all times, transport units are clearly positioned, and all goods movements are seamlessly traceable.
Exact positioning opens up numerous new possibilities for efficient warehouse management – but also places increased demands on the processing of coordinate information. Against this background, the existing warehouse management system at Zipperle was also re-evaluated. The decision was made to introduce the Warehouse Management System (WMS) from ABF, which was specifically designed for 3D warehouse management.
In the future, the ABF WMS will form the central platform for warehouse and material flow control. In combination with the Forklift Guidance System and high-precision RTLS localization, an integrated overall solution is created that enables maximum transparency, location-based strategies, and a significant increase in efficiency in intralogistics.
This project underscores once again the trust our customers place in the holistic competence of ABF – from innovative real-time localization and intelligent forklift control to modern warehouse management.
