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Bright sunlight streams in through the skylights. Below, lift trucks carrying pallets glide through the warehouse of Richter+Frenzel – without noise, and without drivers. “This is our system for order picking small parts,” says Marcus Zweimüller, as yet another lift truck scurries by and disappears inside a cage where a gripper arm places small cardboard boxes on top of pallets. Once a pallet has been loaded, the lift truck heads for one of the 36 ramps where the shipments are loaded onto trucks.

The cardboard boxes contain small parts for sanitation equipment within Richter+Frenzel’s range of 650,000 articles. As the head of fleet management, Marcus Zweimüller is also responsible for the materials handling equipment, as well as for the 420 trucks and 550 cars operated by the specialist wholesaler of sanitation and building services equipment.

With the commissioning of their logistics centre at Reichertshofen near Ingolstadt in Bavaria, not only did Richter+Frenzel expand their operations last year; they also completely repositioned the whole company. Everything at this location is future-proof: the warehouse covers an area of around 30,000 square metres, with a further 30,000 square metres set aside for external storage. The premises are big enough to allow for future expansion. Shipments depart several times a day.

The four logistics centres Richter+Frenzel operates throughout the country supply parts to construction sites, tradesmen, major customers and to their own distribution centres and collection points within a radius of 50 kilometres. Around 40,000 partners in the sanitation, heating, air-conditioning trades and in civil engineering are among the customers of the company’s 170 locations nationwide. “The maximum time from receipt to delivery is 24 hours,” says Zweimüller, who knows that in this business, customer satisfaction depends on efficient logistics.

When Emil Richter and Ernst Frenzel established their “wholesalers of canal, gas and water utilities components” business in 1895, the product range covered wash basins, bathtubs and pipe fittings. Ten employees handled sales and deliveries. Today Richter+Frenzel is still a family-owned and operated enterprise – albeit with markedly different dimensions. Today the number two among German specialist wholesalers of sanitation and building services equipment has 3,900 employees. “The reliability in our dealings with suppliers, customers and staff remains unchanged. It puts us in a very good position for the future,” says Zweimüller, employed by Richter+Frenzel for almost 20 years.

Incidentally, the best-selling item in the range is a real classic: the angle valve. Thanks to the highly evolved logistics and the reliable fleet of vehicles, more than 400,000 of these are delivered to Richter+Frenzel customers every year.

Photos: Matthias Aletsee