Drusi: 9 SILO² VLMs for the storage of high-rotation, small to medium-sized engine parts and components

Alberto Drusi is a company which specializes in the distribution of engine parts and components. Founded in Naples, in 1949, the company is now run by the 4th generation of the same family.

In 2008 the headquarter in Campania was extended with a branch in Bari and another was opened in Bologna in 2018. The company stands out in the market for its extensive catalogue of over 98,000 items, for the technical consultancy service it offers and for the speed of deliveries it achieves to companies across the country.

The biggest problem the company faced was caused by an increase in the number of items that required storage and the difficulty this created when faced with customers who pushed for ever-shorter delivery times.

All of the items were stored on traditional racking on 2 levels, which, as well as not being able to hold the growing number of stock items, left no room for the creation of a third level of storage. In addition, manual order fulfilment involved long item-search times and frequent picking errors. For this reason, the company decided to adopt a completely new solution.

With the objective of increasing storage capacity, while reducing picking errors, and achieving full traceability of both stock items and operations carried out, the company opted to install 9 SILO² VLMs. At 7.2 metres high and 7 metres wide, each SILO² has 3 storage columns and 2 side-by-side picking and refilling stations, all equipped with IRIDE.

In just 200 m², they can offer a storage capacity of 435 m³, or the equivalent of around 30,000 small to medium-sized items with very high rotation, stored on trays according to the supplier and also the item dimensions.