Americold, providers of temperature‐controlled warehousing for the food industry, has partnered with viastore systems, Inc. to automate Americold’s newly expanded Indianapolis facility. Automation will allow Americold to maximize its operational capabilities and efficiency to better meet specific distribution requirements of its customers, the company announced.
viastore worked with Americold to develop an automated solution including:
• a 110-foot-tall rack supported building resulting in an additional 21,000 pallets for storage;
• capability to automatically replenish multi‐level order picking positions integrated into the racking structure;
• viapal pallet-handling automated storage and retrieval machines (AS/RS);
• a pallet conveyor system which will automatically receive and deliver pallets in and out of the system for storage, export staging and order replenishment;
• viastoreblue, part of the system which allows energy efficient drives throughout the system to be optimized through energy reclamation.
This automated portion of Americold’s Indianapolis facility, designed to operate as either a cooler or freezer, is scheduled to be operational in late 2011.
