High level logistics solutions

BY JACOB BENTHIEN

The first clad-rack construction in Denmark, which Langebæk is planning for Jysk. The internal framework is composed of the shelves and racks of the warehouse itself. The external cladding is fixed directly to the framework. Photo: Langebæk Logistik A/S

LOGISTICS: Danish fire protection rules have so far prevented construction of high bay warehouses according to the clad-rack principle. This has forced logistics consultants to conceive advanced solutions for conventional constructions. With a combination of clad-rack and Danish-developed systems, highly efficient logistics is achieved

The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, is one of the world’s largest aid organisations, which offers wideranging emergency assistance from schoolbooks and string and medicines and motor cars. A giant goods store whose warehouse and distribution centre has been located in the Copenhagen Free Port since the late 1950s.

The complex nature of the organisation has made the task of handling logistics in the most costeffective way a labour of love for logistics nerd Torsten Langebæk. It was his grandfather who planned and established the first UNICEF setup in Copenhagen. Torsten’s father continued the expansion, and today Torsten Langebæk himself, as director and partner of the consultancy company Langebæk Logistik A/S, is a central player in new plans which will make the UNICEF Supply Division in Copenhagen the largest UN distribution centre in Europe.

WORLD LEADER
“Something as basic as a midwife’s kit contains about 25 different small objects, from pins and scissors to stethoscope, sanitary towels and various medicaments. And all of them are procured from different places around the world,” says Torsten Langebæk. “To purchase, receive, repack and store in the warehouse, ready to be sent at a few hours’ notice, is a process that requires insight. Not just in technologies and control systems, but also in the company’s operation and production. Optimal logistics requires that it is thought into the company right from the start.”

Langebæk Logistik A/S is Denmark’s leading consultancy company in logistics, stock management and transport systematics. And to be leading in Denmark is – almost – to be worldleading.

“That’s because Danish working environment and safety legislation is the strictest in the world,” says Langebæk. “It forces us to think in terms of full automation, whereas in other countries you can get away with using – and misusing – human labour. In our solutions we eliminate all heavy lifting, and awkward working positions and difficult handling tasks are ruled out.”

Langebæk Logistik focuses on creating logistics solutions that involve as few people as possible, and to give the slimlined workforce the best possible working conditions. A far cry from the conditions elsewhere in the world, where even in countries with which we otherwise compare ourselves, working environment and working safety are often disregarded, says the director.

REAKTHROUGH FOR CLAD-RACK
But in one area Denmark has lagged behind other countries, Torsten Langebæk believes. Very strict fire protection rules have so far made it impossible for Danish companies to construct what are known as clad-rack warehouses. These are warehouses where the internal racking system for storing pallets itself forms the framework of the building, which then just needs external cladding.

“But now we have convinced the fire authorities that we can guarantee safety in clad-rack buildings. It means that we can construct very high buildings with technologically advanced automatic systems, which are up to 30% cheaper to operate.”

Langebæk has planned the first clad-rack warehouse in Denmark for the retail trade chain Jysk, which is seeing tremendous growth with new stores opening every week in countries like the Netherlands and Great Britain. Until last year, Jysk concentrated on the Northern and Eastern European countries, but the growth strategy in Western Europe necessitates new and efficient logistics solutions.

Torsten Langebæk with just one of thousands of drawings that contain the solutions to the logistics challenge Carlsberg faces at Europe’s largest and most modern brewery in Fredericia, Denmark. Photo: Sisse Jarner

FLOW OF GOODS IS VITAL
Jysk has two very different product ranges. One is customeroriented to markets in the former Eastern bloc, the other is for markets in Northern and Western Europe. In addition, there is a large difference between the product ranges in the spring and autumn periods.

“Availability of goods is the most important success criterion at Jysk,” says logistics director Henrik Bøgelund of Jysk. “On average, customers visit us twice a year. And if we do not have the goods that customers want in store, then we lose a sale. It means we must have capacity to store, handle and distribute large quantities of goods. So logistics and flow of goods are of vital importance to our business.”

Jysk’s new clad-rack central warehouse, which will serve Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Great Britain, will have a capacity of 1.5 million m3 and space for 145,000 pallets. 150 trucks will distribute up to 100,000 parcels on a daily basis.

LOGISTICS CONTROLS EUROPE’S MOST MODERN BREWERY One of Langebæk Logistik’s largest projects in 2008 is as a logistics consultant for Carlsberg, which has closed down all its production in Copenhagen. The brewery giant has now consolidated all beer and soft drink production for the Danish market at one of the world’s largest and most modern breweries in Fredericia, Jutland. The centralisation of Carlsberg’s production of more than 500 million litres of beer and soft drinks annually was a major logistics challenge, which required a logistics concept that unified multiple flows of goods and production processes into a single system. From beer production, bottling of soft drinks and sorting and washing of returnable bottles to storage, retrieval and palleting. The solution has created ’probably the most automated brewery in the world’, not just regarding production, but also the subsequent handling and distribution. The Danish depositand-return bottle system poses a special problem. Ten years ago there was only a handful of different bottle types. Today there are more than 3,500 in the returnable system. Logistics has to take account of not only all the different types of bottles and crates, but also the transportation of finished products one way and empty packaging going the other. For the move out of Copenhagen, Carlsberg reckoned on needing 136 large trucks to transport goods across Denmark on a daily basis. This traffic Langebæk has now replaced with one goods train, operating directly from site to site.