As early as in the 1980s, the product range of the supermarket supplier Tegut Gutberlet Stiftung & Co. in Fulda, Germany, was enlarged by organically produced fruit and vegetables. The organic segment with more than 2.500 products comes in part from company owned subsidiaries and the bakery shop which both closely cooperate with farmers of the Eastern Hesse region.
According to their turnover frequency, the organic products are supplied in static pallet racking levels. In order to increase picking performance of their operators while maintaining the FIFO principle during in- and outfeeding, Tegut decided to upgrade its existing pallet racking from BITO and other manufacturers. Static pallet racking levels were to be retro-fitted with carton live storage flow levels.

Optimal KG provides spare parts for axles, brakes, steering and motors as well as other products for motor vehicles. The supplier provides parts and components to the unaffiliated spare parts market from which production partners around the world, original equipment manufacturers and quality suppliers replenish their stocks. Optimal was originally organised as a classic packaging and distribution business, but as their product range continued to grow, the company established several warehouse locations. In 2004, Optimal got into the spare parts business and enlarged their range to suit more than 1.200 different motor vehicle types. After some years, all storage and logistic ressources had been exhausted. Last but not least, the difficulty was that the available 12.000 products are made of 18.000 different parts. For this reason, the company decided to build a new warehouse and distribution centre and to incorporate a packaging service.

Bito-Lagertechnik Bittmann GmbH with their headquarters in Meisenheim (Germany), looks ahead with optimism despite the currently difficult economic environment. “At present, we have to deal with a 20% drop in incoming orders,“ says BITO’s managing director Detlef Ganz on the occasion of a press event celebrating their 50 anniversary as provider of storage and handling products. According to his assessment, this drop is due to the fact that at present there are only few bigger projects on offer on the market. However, compared to the cutback rates of other companies, BITO registers a moderate decrease only which, according to Ganz, can be attributed to the broad range of products and services. „Our broad range suits customers from very diverse industries with very different requirements.” Moreover, BITO has expanded the distribution network to cover the whole of Europe. “Thanks to this strategy, BITO still receives enough orders to achieve a satisfactory to high capacity utilisation ratio of our plants in Meisenheim and in Lauterecken“, continues Ganz. “We therefore do not have a reason to be pessimistic. We know from talks with our customers that most investments have only been postponed. We assume that many of these projects will be realised in 2010.” Last year, we achieved a turnover of 150 million EUR with some 740 employees. This is a plus in turnover of 20% compared to 2007 and a 5% increase in the number of employees. Already in 2007, the company grew by 25% as compared to the previous year and was able to provide 60 new jobs.