The grand opening of Cepsa’s new automated clad-rack warehouse in its lubricant factory in San Roque, Cadiz, Spain took place on March 31st. In attendance, among various authorities, were the official for Work, Business and Commerce from the Andalusian regional government, José Sánchez Maldonado; the Cádiz local government delegate, Fernando López Gil; and Carlos Giner, Cepsa’s Lubricants Director.
Located next to the impressive one and a half million square metre Gibraltar-San Roque refinery installations, the company’s largest production centre in Spain, Mecalux has incorporated the latest automated storage systems technology into the construction of this clad-rack warehouse. This fulfils the main objective put forth by Cepsa: to integrate manufacturing, packaging, storage, order preparation and dispatch processes into a single installation, with uninterrupted product flow and fully automated management.
To achieve this, Mecalux designed and built this automated clad-rack warehouse from start to finish in the space already occupied by the lubricants packing plant. Its size is significant, being 34 m high, 90 m long and 51.3 m wide, with a storage capacity of almost 27,000 pallets. It is equipped with 7 stacker cranes with telescopic forks, and double-deep racks with 18 load levels. Various conveyor circuits and transfer cars handle the load movements between the different areas. The installation is completely controlled and managed by the Mecalux Easy WMS, warehouse management software, the use of which has many advantages. For example, it provides perfect stock control and the traceability of all SKUs, higher picking speeds and the optimisation of inputs and outputs.
During the opening ceremony, the Work, Business and Commerce delegate referred to Cepsa’s new lubricants warehouse as "an example of Andalusian ability to compete in international markets; an example of efficiency, knowledge and innovation, which is what we want to show off in the industrial development within Andalusia".
The integration and automation of processes that Cepsa achieved is thanks to this new facility, increasing the efficiency, profitability and safety of its operations. This fosters export levels and its ability to offer better service to customers every day, which is in keeping with the energy group’s policy of innovation and continuous improvement.
Watch Cepsa’s automated lubricants warehouse in action in this video
