Inside Pesmel's Material Flow How®: The Automated Warehousing System That Transforms Mill Logistics
FERSMEK is the regional integrator for Pesmel in Southeast Asia. That means when a pulp mill, paper mill, or port terminal in the region evaluates Pesmel's Material Flow How® concept, FERSMEK is the team that scopes, installs, and commissions the system locally. This article introduces what that technology is, what it delivers, and why it matters for mills operating under increasing logistics pressure.
What is Material Flow How®?
Material Flow How® is Pesmel's end-to-end concept for mill logistics — from raw material handling through to finished goods dispatch. Rather than a single product, it is a five-component framework that covers the full internal supply chain of a production facility.
The Problem with Manual Mill Warehousing
Most paper and pulp mills were built with manual warehousing as the assumed model — clamp trucks, wide aisles, and floor-stacked rolls. That model made sense when production volumes were lower and product variety was limited. Under current conditions, it creates compounding problems.
Clamp truck dependency introduces product damage as the leading cause of quality loss in finished goods. Each clamp cycle applies point force to an unwrapped roll surface; in high-cycle warehouses, surface damage rates of 1–3% are common. Over a million-tonne-per-year facility, this is a measurable revenue loss.
The dispatch bottleneck is a second major constraint. When truck loading is manual and order sequencing depends on warehouse staff locating and retrieving rolls by memory or paper list, the variability in truck turnaround time is high — often 30 to 90 minutes per truck. For mills with 50+ truck movements per day, this variability cascades into logistics costs and carrier dissatisfaction.
Storage density compounds both problems. Floor-stacked rolls require wide travel aisles for clamp trucks, consuming floor area that could otherwise hold inventory. Mills that need to increase finished goods buffer — to cover for shipping delays or demand peaks — frequently cannot do so without building new warehouse space.
TransRoll™ & TransBale™ ASRS Systems
Pesmel's TransRoll™ is an automated storage and retrieval system designed specifically for paper rolls and pulp bales. Unlike generic pallet ASRS, it is engineered for the irregular geometries and wide weight range of mill products — handling unwrapped, wrapped, and mixed-format rolls on shared rack infrastructure.
The system uses horizontal deep-lane storage technology: rolls are stored end-to-end in lanes rather than face-on as in a pallet rack. This dramatically increases storage density within a given footprint. Stacker cranes operating in the aisle between rack rows achieve throughput of up to 50 cycles per hour per crane, with multi-crane configurations supporting aggregate throughput of 400 rolls per hour for large facilities.
TransBale™ applies the same principles to pulp bale warehousing — critical for chemical pulp mills and paper mills receiving market pulp. The system handles full unit loads directly from the production line with no manual intervention between production and ship loading.
Performance Benchmarks from Pesmel Installations
Source: Pesmel. Statistics reflect results from specific installations; actual performance varies by site configuration and operational parameters.
Case Study: 1.3 Mt/Year Pulp Facility
The following results are drawn from a large-scale Pesmel installation at a pulp facility with an annual production capacity of approximately 1.3 million tonnes. The project replaced manual clamp truck warehousing with a fully automated TransBale™ system integrated with port dispatch.
Throughput increase
Warehouse throughput improved from 900 to 1,000 tonnes per hour following automation — eliminating the warehouse as a production bottleneck.
Truck turnaround standardised
Variable truck turnaround (previously 30–90 min) was replaced with a consistent 30-minute cycle regardless of order complexity or warehouse fill level.
Rail turnaround cut to one-third
Rail wagon loading time was reduced to approximately one-third of the previous baseline through automated order sequencing and dispatch control.
Zero product damage
With no clamp truck contact on finished rolls, surface damage to product was eliminated entirely — removing the primary source of quality complaints at customer receipt.
WMS Integration & Industry 4.0
Material Flow How® includes Pesmel's own Warehouse Management System as a native component — not a third-party add-on. The WMS provides real-time inventory position for every roll or bale in the system, full traceability from production line to dispatch document, and bidirectional integration with mill ERP and supply chain planning systems.
For mills operating under increasing customer traceability requirements — common in tissue, specialty paper, and pharmaceutical packaging grades — the WMS data layer is an operational requirement, not optional. It also enables predictive dispatch sequencing: the system begins staging an order before the truck arrives, further compressing turnaround time.
Why SE Asia Mills Should Consider This Now
Southeast Asia's pulp and paper sector is under compounding pressure: regional capacity additions are increasing competition, export logistics through Bangkok, Laem Chabang, and major Indonesian ports are tightening, and labour availability for warehouse operations is declining as industrial wages rise across the region.
Mills that invested in automated warehousing in the 2015–2020 period are now operating with a structural cost and service advantage over those that deferred. The payback period data — under four years at multiple installations — suggests that further deferral is difficult to justify on financial grounds alone.
As Pesmel's regional integrator for SE Asia, FERSMEK provides local project delivery for Material Flow How® implementations — including site assessment, civil coordination, automation engineering, PLC/WMS integration, commissioning, and ongoing support. We bring Pesmel's global technology to facilities where local implementation capability has historically been a barrier.
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FERSMEK is the regional integrator for Pesmel in Southeast Asia. Bring us your current warehouse layout, production volumes, and dispatch requirements — we'll scope what Material Flow How® can deliver for your facility.