Pallet racks and Pallet Shuttle in the new Genta warehouse in Italy

About Genta S.n.c.

This Italian company specialises in the storage and transport of empty bottles and bottled beverages. It was founded in 1945, boasting many years of experience as a transport company.

Genta S.n.c. offers its customers the opportunity to monitor their entire supply chain, beginning with efficient warehouse management. It is responsible for identifying products, storing them for as long as needed, dispatching them and sending them to the end customers.

The new warehouse

The company has just opened a new 40,000 m² distribution centre in the Italian town of Santa Vittoria d'Alba, in the north of the country. From there, explains Domenico Genta, owner of Genta S.n.c., “we supply all our customers in Italy and the rest of the world by intermodal transport.”. This warehouse is designed for alcoholic beverage storage and receives a staggering 2,500 to 3,000 pallets a day.

According to Domenico Genta “we wanted to have this quantity of products under control at all times to prevent any mistakes.”. Not to mention that speed was also a priority, as the company wanted to cope with this entire workload in the shortest possible time.

With this in mind Mecalux equipped the warehouse with four blocks of high-density racking with the semi-automatic Pallet Shuttle system. According to Domenico Genta, this solution “has improved the management of warehouse spaces, allowing us to leverage the building's height.”. The size of the racks is substantial: 10 m high, with five levels, and 28 m long. Pallet racks have been installed right next to them. The two systems make maximum use of the available surface area to provide capacity for 7,075 pallets.

Domenico Genta - Owner of Genta S.n.c.
“When it came to equipping our warehouse, it was very clear to us that we needed the support of a company as professional as Mecalux. They are leaders in the design, manufacture and installation of storage systems and the result has been highly successful. We found what we were looking for."

Advantages of the Pallet Shuttle system

“This system has minimised operator manoeuvring times,” points out Domenico Genta. The reason is that they do not enter the lanes to handle the goods. Instead, the shuttle executes the movements automatically.

The operators, using reach trucks, place the motorised shuttle in the corresponding channel, insert the pallets in the first position on the racks and the Pallet Shuttle moves the pallets straight to the next location.

While the Pallet Shuttle moves and positions the pallet, the operator uses the time to find another pallet and place it in the first position of the corresponding channel. So, when the shuttle returns to the beginning of the channel, the same movement is repeated seamlessly. The same operation is carried out to remove the goods, but in reverse order.

The goods are slotted into one side of the block of racks and are extracted from the opposite side. With this system, goods are managed according to the FIFO principle i.e. the first pallet to enter is the first to leave. “This solution ensures perfect product rotation”.

Advantages for Genta S.n.c.

• Surface usage: the racks are 10 m high and 28 m long. A very ample space to increase storage.
• Efficient distribution of goods: the Pallet Shuttle system organises goods stringently according to the FIFO criterion (first in, first out).
• Agile operations: the Pallet Shuttle manages daily inflows of between 2,500 and 3,000 pallets.