A New Application of Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVS), 2003 Spring Technical Conference Proceedings

Borealis, a leading producer of environmentally superior polyolefin plastics in Sweden, has successfully applied AGV technology to their finished goods warehouse function. The application includes automatic transportation of palletized loads from their packing lines to their finished goods warehouse and then on to marshalling/staging areas at the shipping docks. In their warehouse, the loads are stacked two high, one on top of another, without the use of pallet racking.

A highly accurate and repeatable forklift type AGVS is used to accomplish the transportation, storage and retrieval of loads. The total capacity of the warehouse is 12,500 storage locations and the warehouse is managed by a Warehouse Management System (WMS) software system. The AGVS provides fully automated handling of loads from the palletizer / stretch-wrapper output into storage, out of storage and onto the dock for manual loading onto trailers. The key to the success of this application is the ability of the AGVS to stack and unstack pallet loads without the use of racking.