Building Materials Logistics

In the building materials logistics industry section, you will discover some information on this subject area, e.g. from the fields of storage, transportation and production of building materials. With 135,000 employees, the German building materials industry achieved an annual turnover of 30 billion euros and is therefore an interesting sector from our point of view.

What are building materials?

Product groups include

Building material production

Strictly speaking, the production of building materials is rather the extraction and refinement of raw materials. However, the processing of building materials, such as concrete blocks, bricks, etc., is not subject to any special requirements. Only the protection of employees in the workplace, e.g. due to dust or the weight of the products, is subject to stricter requirements for the producer.

The extraction of raw materials takes place on approx. 0.004% of Germany's land area through surface or underground mining. In all building materials logistics, particularly in production and transportation (especially to construction sites), the focus is on recycling building materials. In this context, the return of recycled materials poses an additional challenge.

Applications of building materials

• Limestone: Cement, quicklime for the iron and steel industry, construction industry, environmental protection, agriculture, chemical industry, glass/paper/sugar industry
• Gravel and sand: road construction, railroad construction, hydraulic engineering, concrete components, ready-mixed concrete, mortar, sand-lime brick, landscaping, iron and steel production, glass industry
• Gypsum stone: burnt gypsum for applications in the construction industry (plasterboard, plaster, screed, chemical industry, medicine)
• Quartz sand: aerated concrete, glass, electronic components, photovoltaic systems, iron and steel industry
  Recycled building materials: road construction, concrete production
• Natural stone: road construction, railroad construction, hydraulic engineering, cast stone
• Clays: Bricks, tiles, household ceramics, sanitary facilities, refractory ceramics, chemical industry

Storage of building materials

Some means of storage:

• Mesh boxes
• Mesh pallet collars
• Pallets
• Stacking frames

The demands placed on building materials warehouses are enormous. Especially dimensions and weights, large quantities and products that are subject to strong seasonal fluctuations present an additional difficulty. Building material warehouses are often described as a kind of mixed warehouse, with block storage, shelving racks and cantilever racks or even open-space storage.

Special features of building materials storage

Building materials are often bulk goods, long or bulky goods and oversized goods. Storage on pallets is feasible for the most part, although most of the products exceed the dimensions of conventional pallets (Euro dimensions). In addition, many items cannot be stacked due to their weight or unusual dimensions. As a result, block storage or storage in particularly strong and specially dimensioned shelving racks is generally the best option. Cantilever racking is suitable for long and bulky goods. Bulk goods are often stored in open spaces, and since stackability is considerably restricted, the individual goods have very high weights and throughput times are short, warehouses with heights of up to 6-8 m are preferred. these low-value, insensitive items do not require particularly modernized or heated warehouses. This means that for the most part they are not sensitive to moisture or frost and if they are not hazardous goods. Automated handling/storage is not possible or even sensible here.building materials warehouses often serve as transshipment points, function as logistics centers or contain the sales area, as it were.

Building materials warehouses as transshipment points/cross-docking center

Transhipment warehouses for building materials often have very short throughput times and therefore a high number of incoming and outgoing goods. This is therefore referred to as buffering rather than storage. Large halls with block storage separated by zones are the most suitable solution. It is ideal for loading and unloading if the trucks can drive directly through the hall at ground level, as this is the quickest way to process a high volume of deliveries at predefined time windows. As the products have unusual dimensions, they are only available in small quantities in the end consumer markets. This means that the markets have to be resupplied very frequently. Consequently, it is sufficient to have a buffer in the transshipment center in areas assigned to the stores. This means that almost unmixed trucks with only a few different products arrive at the CDC. Furthermore, during unloading, goods are immediately picked into the areas for the stores, from where all items in a buffer zone are loaded back onto a truck, which consequently only supplies one or a few stores with a large number of different goods in small quantities. A large number of trucks arrive for loading at the same time or overlap enormously because they are tied to the store delivery times. Subsequent peak loading time windows therefore present an extra difficulty, which can be countered by providing sufficient gates or ramps or by means of a drive-through facility in the warehouse.

Building materials warehouse as a logistics center / docking center

As already mentioned above, in building materials logistics we are talking about products in large quantities that are subject to enormous seasonal fluctuations and have a low value. The multimodality of the warehouse could therefore reduce transportation costs, as inland or rail transport is the much more cost-effective option for the size and low value of the products. In view of the dimensions, a free storage space allocation is used as the first choice because not every product would fit in every storage space.

Building materials warehouse with sales area

Building materials warehouses that also serve as sales areas place special demands on the design because an attractive sales area, an unrestricted view of the front of the building and adequate parking spaces are required "at the front". At the "rear" of the building, there should be loading ramps and sufficient space of between 15,000 and 40,000 m² is required. As the entire storage area is at the same time a sales area and customers move around unhindered, particular attention must be paid to safety. Customers also notice the storage racks and loading aids when shopping, so they should be visually attractive.

First and foremost, the traffic connection should be particularly good for the road. As the location for the customers should be in the center, care must be taken to ensure that the connection for the delivery trucks is not too dusty or similar. In this case, deliveries can only be made outside opening hours.

Special transport features of building materials

Possible loading units:

• Full pallets
• Full lifts
• Long goods
• Bulky goods
• Oversized goods

Due to the dimensions of many building material products, trucks can often only be loaded and unloaded from the side. The warehouse should therefore be at ground level or have an all-round ramp.

As transportation in containers is the most cost-effective option due to the low value and insensitivity of the products, a connection to a port is an advantage. Weight also plays a major role here, as the goods are often very heavy and the weight capacity of the truck is quickly exhausted, even though it is not fully loaded.

The bulk goods category requires special vehicles, such as tippers. The transportation of bulk goods on a "normal" truck requires special loading aids. These could be big bags, for example, although the quantities required here are usually so large that the volumes of the big bags are disproportionate. However, this is the most common option for trade with private consumers.

Generally speaking, building materials are not goods that need to be transported quickly. Inland transportation is therefore ideally suited for this. However, materials are often needed at short notice on construction sites. Therefore, "reserves" in the vicinity of the construction sites should always be available by truck.

Load securing is an important issue, especially for bulky and heavy goods. You often hear in the news about goods that are too heavily loaded or not sufficiently secured. Trained personnel are therefore one of the best investments, as in any area of logistics.

Transport of building materials with vehicles: