Sustainability seems to be one of the latest industrial buzzwords, but what does it really mean and how can pharmaceutical, logistics, manufacturing, and all companies within the warehousing industry really benefit from the concept of sustainability and “going green”.
AS/R Systems, none more than the Moffett Automated Storage 4D Taxi system, helps those in the warehouse industry create a more sustainable facility, particularly in cold storage or freezer applications. These facilities require much more energy than ambient warehousing, and by implementing a Moffett Automated Storage system, a much smaller footprint is achieved by providing far more storage in the same amount of area. The energy being used to cool the storage area remains the same, whilst the number of pallets being cooled is greatly increased, sometimes by up to 60% on standard racking.
There are more factors that contribute to your MAS AS/R systems helping you create a more sustainable cold storage facility than just an increased number of pallet spaces. People, forklifts, and inefficient lighting create heat, causing your refrigeration systems to work under greater pressure. By using a Moffett Automated Storage system, as opposed to a forklift, to move stock in and out of your cold storage environment you can reduce the energy loss, particularly from minus 30 degrees to chill. We can integrate envelope doors into your system, which minimises any heat loss from entering or exiting pallets from the system
Another potential way of decreasing the environmental footprint of your cold store is by implementing an oxy-reduced system. This reduces the oxygen content in the air of the warehouse, eliminating the need for sprinklers, maximising all space in the warehouse. MAS has successfully carried this out in a cold store as part of a recent project, finding that it can help improve the overall efficiency of the system and achieving the goals of the customer. By integrating this into your cold storage, you can maximise the height of your structure while maintaining fire safety standards.
Why Become a More Sustainable Warehouse?
For us at Moffett Automated Storage, the question isn’t why to become a more sustainable warehouse. The question is Why Not?.
There is a number of reasons why “going green” will improve your warehousing solution. Five key benefits of becoming more sustainable are;
- Reducing your operational costs
- Ensuring the quality of your product
- Maximising your warehouse productivity
- Significantly reduced energy costs
- Reduced waste production
- Reducing your Operational Costs: By creating a more sustainable storage solution, by integrating automation and the Moffett 4D AS/R system, warehousing solutions can greatly reduce their operational costs. The amount of labour needed to operate the warehouse is greatly reduced leading to significant savings in operational costs. Whilst the initial capital investment of integrating automation into your warehouse may appear significant, the savings, in the long run, will soon become clear.
2. Ensuring the quality of your product: By reducing the amount of human presence in your warehouse, and in particular by eliminating the need for forklifts presence in the warehouse, you can ensure higher quality of your products. Less human intervention ultimately means less damage to pallets, as automation eliminates human error and damage by vehicles.
3. Maximising your warehouse productivity: A more sustainable system such as the Moffett AS/R 4D Taxi system can greatly increase your warehouse’s productivity. More pallet spaces in the same area increases your productivity. Furthermore, with a Moffett system, throughputs can be easily altered to suit your business through the addition of additional taxis, allowing you to easily increase your number of pallet movements if needed.
4. Significantly Reduced Energy Costs: As there is no need for human presence in the warehouse, there is no need for lights. This alone can greatly reduce energy costs. Now imagine the energy that is lost in a conventional cold store when a door is big enough to allow a forklift and pallet to drive in and out throughout the working day. With a Moffett AS/R system, the door can be significantly smaller. And we can implement envelope doors that work to minimise the energy loss during pallet movements. These features can help companies uncover huge energy cost savings
5. Reduced Waste Production: In conventional warehouses outfitted with forklifts, waste can derive from re-packaging and product loss due to damage and mishandling, but an automated warehouse eliminates the need for most fork trucks, which reduces the likelihood of product damage and loss. A Moffett AS/R system can retrieve and transport pallets safely and smoothly across the system prompting less plastic stretch wrap consumption as securing the pallet is less of a concern.
As a proud associate member of the Cold Chain Federation, we are proud to be offering our systems to members, helping them create a more sustainable, eco-friendly warehousing solution. We are excited to get involved with the federation’s “Cold Chain Net Zero Project” which will help storage and distribution companies create the most sustainable storage solution possible.