Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the results obtained by implementing an innovative industry 4.0 warehouse storage concept within a German automotive industry company based in Western Romania. The conducted research presents the benefits of the proper application of technology in the logistics activity and highlights specific improvements and associated outcomes after redesigning warehouse layout and process flows. The paper highlights the challenges of doubling storage locations without extending the designated area, but with the issue of losing warehouse space in favor of production in view of estimated volumes increases for the following 5 year-timespan. The selected automatic storage concept and the redesigned layout are a premiere for the dynamic automotive industry sector in Romania, as the case study already after 6 months outlines consistent operational improvements throughout the warehouse-specific processes.   Findings show an almost optimized 30% more stable process, an increase in speed of warehouse movements, gaining more than 20% new storage locations than was expected, more than doubling location occupancy rate, a 70% improvement of interoperations issues rate and a more than 4 times better overall productivity gain enabling an effective support of both current and future customer volume demands.