Acting as general contractor for Dan Cake Polonia, Kardex Mlog constructed a high-performance, 3-aisle, high-bay warehouse with extensive conveying and control technology to ensure secure processes. The modular Kardex Control Center ensures error-free operation through optimal ergonomics. Following a challenging project phase in the middle of the corona pandemic, the plant became operational at the end of 2022. For Kardex Mlog, this was one of the first projects to be completed by its Polish subsidiary.
Sweet-smelling brownies, delicious muffins, and tasty pastry rolls: The typical Danish baked goods and cakes are among the best representatives of the Scandinavian way of life. The fact that we can regularly enjoy these treats in countries outside of Scandinavia is due in no small measure to the Eskildsen family. Back in 1931, Jens Eskildsen founded the company and created the Dan Cake brand, under which some 350 different specialties are produced today on an industrial scale. Since 2004, Dan Cake Polonia and the production location in Chrzanów have been a part of this international Group, which operates other plants, including production locations in Denmark, Germany, Poland, and Bangladesh.
Dan Cake Polonia is one of Poland’s leading producers of packed bakery and confectionery products. The company is a modern and dynamically growing organization, and its production facility extends to 7 state-of-the-art production lines. It supplies the market with products under its own Dan Cake brand and produces goods for the largest retail chains in Poland.
The successful expansion of Dan Cake Polonia led to the decision to construct its own logistics center in Chrzanów.
Further expansion possible
With the support of the consulting and planning company S-CON, Kardex Mlog was commissioned in December 2019 as general contractor to construct a 3-aisle, fully automated, high-bay pallet warehouse for the storage of raw materials, packaging materials and finished goods. The scope of supply for Kardex Mlog in the approximately 4.3 million euro project also included the extensive conveying technology to connect the manual picking area, the production facility, and the staging area in goods issue and/or the newly built shipping hall. This far-sighted planning enables future expansion of the high-bay warehouse to include three additional aisles, representing a doubling of its capacity. As early as the contract award stage, Dan Cake was already considering the future expansion of its investment.
The high-bay warehouse runs as a three-shift operation, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Warehouse organization is handled with the Kardex Control Center using the Kardex WMS management system, which includes the Kardex MFlow material flow system and the Kardex MVisu plant visualization system with an interface to the host system of Dan Cake.
Customized service concept
The plant offers 6,400 storage spaces for the pallets, which are up to 2.55m high and are stored double deep. The contract also included the steel racking construction and an extensive service concept for sustainable maintenance and servicing of the plant, considering that the Dan Cake employees already possess in depth technical knowledge. Kardex Mlog also took on the coordination role for the other trades involved in the project. For example, the client supplied the wall and ceiling cladding in the high-bay warehouse, the sprinkler system, the ventilation system, and the platform for the conveying technology. One of the challenges Kardex Mlog faced was that, after the project began – during the realization phase, to be precise – the layout of the conveying technology was modified once more. Even though the modifications meant that a complete platform level was eliminated, Kardex Mlog still found an optimal solution.
To complicate matters further, the project commenced in early 2020 under the shadow of the developing corona pandemic, causing various delays. “Just six weeks after the project kick-off, the corona pandemic began, and this was going on in the background during the entire realization phase,” remembers Manuel Engel, who headed the project for Kardex Mlog. “Work on the project proved very challenging because many items could no longer be sourced, and the members of our project team were only able to access the construction site under very difficult conditions,” adds project leader Edis Zjajo, who handed over the high-bay warehouse to Dan Cake Polonia in mid-2022. “This result was only possible as a result of the trusting, pragmatic, and unconventional collaboration with the entire project team from Dan Cake Polonia,” insists Engel.
Up to 60 single cycles per hour and stacker crane
Three stacker cranes of type Kardex MSingle B 1000/31-ZT operate in the aisles of the warehouse, each with aisle equipment and automatic controls. Each machine is approximately 30.3 meters high and can handle a payload of 1,000 kilograms per load unit. The load-handling device is a telescopic fork with two drives, which enables double-deep storage and retrieval. This means that the stacker cranes are capable of up to 60 single cycles per hour when no stock transfers are being carried out. With a stock transfer share of 15 percent and a balance between storage and retrieval operations, the machines achieve 58.6 single or 35.4 double cycles. Controlled by state-of-the-art controls (SPS) of type Siemens S7-1500F and SEW MoviPLC, each operation and the current positions of the three stacker cranes and the conveying technology are displayed graphically in the warehouse control center using Kardex MVisu visualization software.
The same applies to the storage and retrieval operations: Each storage operation is reported by the customer’s host system to the Kardex Control Center. Then the pallets are identified using a barcode reader at the handover channel in goods receipt or at the transfer point to the upstream conveying technology. In the next step, each pallet to be stored is checked for contour, space for the forks, integrity of the bottom planks, and overload, which ensures extremely safe processes. Then the Kardex MFlow material flow computer commissions the conveying system control to transport the load units to their respective destinations. The options available include an NIO route (NIO stands for “Not OK”), the picking area, the production area, or the high-bay warehouse. In addition to order management and route planning, Kardex MFlow enables manual intervention in the process, significantly simplifying plant operation and greatly improving ergonomics.
Shipping station with 24 roller conveyors
The Kardex Control Center receives the relevant orders from the host system for retrieval. Then the transport orders are generated for the stacker cranes and transmitted to the crane controls. Kardex MFlow ensures that the load unit is transported via stacker crane and conveying system from the high-bay warehouse to the shipping, picking, or production areas. The pallets intended for the shipping area are transported to the distribution vehicle, which then places them on one of the 24 shipping roller conveyors or in a buffer area for sequencing.
Summary: With its new high-performance, high-bay warehouse in Chrzanów, Poland, Dan Cake Polonia now has expandable logistics capacity for further growth. The intelligent controlling of the plant ensures secure processes, with manual intervention possible at any time. The visualization of the processes simplifies operation and, at the same time, improves the ergonomics of the plant.
Background: Dan Cake
The Dan Cake brand specializes in the manufacture of bakery and confectionery products. The company was founded in 1931 by Jens Eskildsen in Simmelkjær, Denmark, 60 kilometers north of Give. The current production plant was built in Hjortsvangen in Give in 1978. Since 2004, the company has also operated a production facility in Poland. The product range consists of 19 article groups and approximately 350 different products. The range includes brownies, crescent pastries, mini cakes, Madeira cakes, foil cakes, fresh cakes, muffins, and the very popular pastry rolls. Following an eventful company history and several changes of ownership, Dan Cake returned to Eskildsen family ownership in 2004.
For more information, see www.dancake.dk.
About Kardex Mlog
Kardex Mlog (www.kardex.com), with head office in Neuenstadt am Kocher, is one of the leading suppliers of integrated material flow systems and high-bay warehouses. The company has more than 55 years of experience in the planning, implementation and maintenance of fully automated logistics solutions. The three business sectors - Greenfield installations, Refurbishment, and After-sales service – draw upon its in-house manufacturing facility in Neuenstadt. Kardex Mlog is part of the Kardex Group and employs 305 people. In 2021 the company achieved revenues of €89 million.
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E-Mail: bettina.wittenberg@kardex.com