SSI Flat Pack Picking

Automated Picking for Heavy and Bulky Goods

Loading heavy, unwieldy goods onto pallets manually is an exhausting, time-consuming task in warehouses. Picking furniture or furniture parts often involves combining goods of very different sizes and weights on one pallet. SSI SCHAEFER’s unique SSI Flat Pack Picking solution is the answer: Based on pack patterns calculated for each specific case, a gantry robot picks the goods efficiently and fully automatically, minimizing the volume. Thus SSI Flat Pack Picking reduces warehouse employees’ workload and provides a more ergonomic working environment. The highly innovative SSI Flat Pack Picking solution can process deliveries to brick-and-mortar businesses in parallel with online orders for end customers–quickly, reliably and efficiently. In addition, the new pallet picking solution ensures a constant material flow. The SSI Flat Pack Picking module occupies as much as 50% less floor space than tunnel picking, which requires walkways and separate replenishment areas. Reduced per-order logistics costs, as well as lower fixed costs, benefit operators and quickly cover the investment costs. From hardware to software, SSI SCHAEFER is a single source for all components. The SSI Flat Pack Picking solution has a modular design, can scale up flexibly and can adapt to e-commerce business growth at any time. Besides the furniture industry, the concept also applies to other sectors that handle large, heavy goods, such as wood/metal blanks, fence elements or windows.

An international panel of experts agree that the intelligent SSI Flat Pack Picking robotics solution is a highly innovative approach. In 2022, the panel awarded the coveted IFOY Award (International Intralogistics and Forklift Truck of the Year Award) in the market comparison in the “Integrated Warehouse Solution” category.

An Automated Picking Solution to Meet the Demands of Large Durable Goods

How to identify potential improvements and meet challenges handling heavy, bulky pallets

• Leverage one warehouse or distribution center to handle both goods-in and goods-out processes for end-user customers and storefront deliveries.

• Eliminate heavy lifting tasks and lower employee liability risks associated with manual product movement.

• Relieves material flow bottlenecks associated with handling heavy bulk goods and speeds up throughput.

• Delivers a dense storage solution, which saves on square footage.

Advantages of the SSI Flat Pack Picking Solution

Our promise for safe planning, operation and expandability:

• Efficient, optimized palletizing with pack patterns, which forms and assembles stable pallets with reduced volume.

• SSI Flat Pack Picking occupies minimal floor space in both new and existing warehouse.

• Automated picking that expands as your business grows.

• Creates a more ergonomic work environment and eliminates the heavy physical strain of manual picking. 

• Delivers a constant material flow and provides safe handling of heterogeneous items.

• Provides a reliable 24/7 operation with a fully automated turnkey picking solution.

• Everything is from a single source supplier. SSI SCHAEFER provides the entire SSI Flat Pack Picking solution, which includes hardware and software from one single source. 

Made to Reduce Heavy Manual Labor and Increase Output

SSI Flat Pack Picking is a turnkey system for reliable, fully automated handling of a wide range of bulky durable good items – specially developed for the furniture industry but works with other products too. This order picking solution grew out of an initiative between SSI SCHAEFER specialists, who collaborated with a multinational furnishings company to realize its commercial potential. This material handling process utilizes the automated SSI Flat Pack Picking solution and complements a high-bay warehouse, which can serve as an automatic pallet buffer for picking. Along the buffer aisle, four RO-BER FP150 series gantry robots do the heavy picking, accessing A-items – which are provided statically – as well as B- and C- items – which are provided dynamically – within the respective action areas. The gantry robots are equipped with multifunctional grippers that automatically adapt to both the dimensions of the items and the type of packaging by means of servo-motor-adjustable suction cups. The gantry robots and grippers were developed by RO-BER Industrieroboter GmbH, a subsidiary of SSI SCHAEFER. Vision technology, in combination with the WAMAS® logistics software, supports this process, allowing each picking robot to quickly identify the proper position of the requested item. Items up to 8’ or 2.5 m in length and weighing more than 132 Lbs. / 60 kg are safely picked up from the source pallet and transferred to the ready-to-use order pallet. The removal of intermediate layers is also fully automated. The stored SSI Pack Pattern Generator ensures a safe, optimized arrangement of the items on the order pallets, which are prepared for further processing via a buffer as part of the outbound process.