Experiences with the Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) in Mo i Rana

Experiences with the Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS)in Mo i Rana

Helén Sakrihei, Head of The Repository Library, The National Library of Norway

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The Repository Library

• Established in 1989• Staff: 17 employees• Interlending per year:

100,000 documents• Aquisition per year:

100 – 200,000 documents

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The Repository Library

• Collection:• 780,000 monographs• 1,5 million issues

of periodicals• 50,000 microfilms• Audio books• Music CDs

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Why Automatic Storage and Retrieval System?• In 1996 the NL started to plan a new

storage for The RL, and investigatedthe possibilities for building an ASRS

• Advantages• Traditional storage would cost more

to build (15 – 20 million NOK)• Operation expenses would be lower• ASRS would require 20-25% of the

base area of a traditional storage

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Why Automatic Storage?

• The ASRS would be based on a well known tecnhology used by companies such as Lego,Husquarna etc. etc.

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Why Automatic Storage?

Disadvantages:- The mechanics would make

The ASRS vulnerable- Would it be noisy?- Operating The ASRS

would be monotonous?- Books could disappear

when they didn’t have a permanent place on a shelf?

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Moving into the ASRS

• In 2000 The Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs accepted our plans for building an ASRS with a maximum cost of 100 million NOK.

• The RL closed temporarily in October 2002.

• Within 15 months we moved most of the collection into The ASRS.

• Reopened June 2003

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The Automatic Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS)

• 41 500 steel boxes• folders• Three gangways• Three Automatic Miniload

Cranes• 200 boxes in/out per hour• Random storage

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Random storage

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Random storage

• No permanent box or folder• No permanent location• Each location has an coordinate• Barcodes• Attached to each other in the

Warehouse Management System (WMS)

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How does it work?

• Every morning loan orders aresent from Bibsys to WMS.

• The cranes fetch the boxes whichcontain ordered material

• The boxes are brought to the pick up stations in the Retrieval Centre

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How does it work?

• The operators read the barcode on the publication, and both WMS and Bibsys are updated

• Some orders requiremanual work:

- microfilms- article copies- multi-volume publications

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Operation stability

• 160,000 items out and 220,000 items in to storage per year

• High operation stability• Automation engineer who

maintains the hardware• Four of our co-workers have been

special trained in ASRS/WMS• Service on Storage once a year

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How has The ASRS changed the way we work?• The need of manpower to carry out

our loanorders has been reduced to 1/3.

• More capacity to other tasks, such ascataloguing

• New tasks:- books to digitization

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Collection control

• Coordinated shelf lists from Bibsys and Swisslog• In order to find books in storage that aren’t registrated

in the catalogue, and books in the catalogue that aren’t in storage

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Problems…

• When errors do occur, we often manage to solve them klarer vi som ourselves

• Depend on a good support agreement

• Hardware problems – the RL• Software problems – Swisslogg• Spare parts

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Conclusion

• The ASRS has given us easy access to our collection and made us able to carry out all loan orderswithin 24 hours

• From time to time we do have shutdowns, but all in all the operation stability is high

• Books can disappear, but more seldom than from traditional bookshelves

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Plans

• By 2012 todays storage is filled• Now we are planlegging the next

storage• known technology• use existing infrastructure• easy to build

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Kiitos…

helen.sakrihei@nb.no