An impression of Poco Loco's future high-bay warehouse by Bureau Partners.

Egemin Automation will soon start the construction of a new automated high-bay warehouse for Belgian snack food producer Poco Loco.

The company has been experiencing steady growth and needs more capacity. To achieve this, the company recently bought a 7 ha industrial site across the road from its existing production facility. The new warehouse is part of a EUR50 million (USD56 million) project that will allow Poco Loco to centralise its storage in one location, giving it even more control over its logistics process.

For Egemin, the project represents a confirmation of its competencies in automated warehouses for the food industry.

Egemin Automation, part of the KION Group, will provide the complete design and delivery of the system, including all warehouse equipment and the automation of all logistics processes within this project. "We have succeeded in separating all the logistics processes and properly aligning them," says Joris Van Hoye, system and concept engineer at Egemin Automation. "The warehouse, at 43 m high and with a surface area of 8,000 sqm, (is) an impressive project. The warehouse is equipped with 11 stacker cranes and 910 m of pallet conveyor, which ensure that 304 pallets can be moved in and out per hour.

"We managed to come up with a fairly simple solution to the myriad of complex logistics processes. That's one reason why Poco Loco chose Egemin."

Details of the materials handling equipment to be used at the facility have not been revealed.

Construction of the project will start soon and run for 18 months. The new warehouse will be operational by early 2018.