Month: March 2019

France-based international 3PL Geodis will open a new warehouse in Oberhausen this summer. The 40,000 square-meter building is being built by SEGRO, a UK industrial real estate group, with which Geodis has already implemented other major projects.

Geodis will hire up to 500 employees for the extensive warehousing and order picking operations in Oberhausen. The combination of a strong, available pool of skilled workers and an attractive logistic location with very good transportation connections make Oberhausen the ideal choice for this new location. In addition, the logistics centre will be implemented with an innovative warehouse concept that combines maximum space utilization with maximum productivity.

With this new opening, Geodis is continuing to expand its long-standing e-commerce strategy. In recent years, the company has significantly expanded its contract logistics business on a national and international level with well-known companies in this sector. With Oberhausen, a total of six of the 14 logistics centres operated by the company in Germany alone will specialize in e-commerce.

“We have been pursuing a very successful growth strategy in this market segment for years,” says Thomas Kraus, President & CEO North, East and Central Europe.

Italy’s Sitma Machinery has added its latest solution from its innovative e-cobots technology and the next evolution of the species for wrapping parcels in the e-commerce field: the Sitma e-Wrap, one of the most popular platforms designed by the Italian company. Originally created for Åland Post Ltd, a postal operator based in Northern Europe, today e-Wrap is presented in its most advanced 2.0 form, redesigned to respond to renewed needs for savings and efficiency in the logistics sector.

From postal operator to e-commerce specialist
Formed as a postal operator specializing in shipping newspapers and magazines, Åland Post Ltd gradually shifted its activity to focus on management of envelopes and parcels, becoming a true logistics operator in the field of e-commerce. This structural change meant needing to find more flexible packaging solutions, capable of handling products of different sizes and, at the same time, allowing savings on materials. Building on its experience in both the logistics and packaging sectors, Sitma worked together with Åland Post Ltdt to develop a tailor-made solution: the ‘e-Wrap packaging machine. The machine developed by the Italian company, characterized by the use of plastic film and variable formats, has been operating for over three years at the Aland Post headquarters, where it has showed excellent efficiency, flexibility and productivity.

The evolution of the species: e-Wrap 2.0
The e-Wrap proved to be a winning solution, able to respond to the needs arising from the boom in the e-commerce sector in Europe, but Sitma wanted to go further. Building on its experience in sorting processes, the company developed an evolved version of e-Wrap. The ‘2.0’ version, in addition to allowing packages of variable sizes to be packaged with different types of films, integrates and automates advanced processes, increasingly meeting the needs of efficiency, work management and cost saving experienced by companies active in the sector. In the e-Wrap 2.0 packaging machine’s operating concept, upstream the e-Cobots automatically pick up packages from the racks (drawers containing orders to be packaged and shipped) and, thanks to a special feeding system created by Sitma engineering, offers the possibility to take and apply paper inserts (such as invoices or other documents), integrating perfectly with the package without needing glue, thus ensuring significant savings in materials. The packaging machine operates in a vertical direction, guaranteeing wrapping with tailored film applied to packs of different sizes and shapes, quickly performing the various operations of cutting, welding, weighing and labeling. Finally, downstream in the process, the e-Wrap integrates perfectly with the sorting systems, Sitma’s flagship, which concludes the package management cycle from picking to final shipment.

EnerSys has launched its ODYSSEY Performance Series batteries for buses, trucks and other large commercial vehicles. Optimized to meet the high load demands of the modern automotive vehicle sector, the batteries offer a solution to fleet owners and operators who are facing a sharp rise in battery-related vehicle breakdowns.

Advanced Thin Plate Pure Lead (TPPL) technology enables unmatched battery performance improvements, providing unrivalled usable capacity, strength and life – to reliably power even the most demanding vehicles – along with an outstanding reduction in total cost of ownership.

Phil Arrowsmith, Director Specialty Market EMEA at EnerSys, commented: ‘The ODYSSEY Performance Series battery range is what modern transport and service vehicles have been waiting for. Tried and tested in the heavy-duty vehicle market for more than five years, these superior batteries harness the power of TPPL battery technology to deliver massive starting and endurance ability.’

Available in standard footprints for European heavy-duty vehicles, ODYSSEY Performance Series batteries comply with DIN B and DIN C size standards for Europe and the widely recognised – though no longer formally accepted – 629 and 625 references for the UK.

Today’s vehicle and driver systems are demanding ever-higher levels of performance, beyond anything conventional batteries were ever designed for. Existing batteries are therefore increasingly unable to handle vehicles’ growing electrical loads. A typical battery challenge is to support a ‘hotel load’ without the need to restart the engine, while retaining enough reserve power to reliably start the engine again the following morning – and to repeat this without fail throughout the battery’s operating life.

The team from Rubb Buildings on the rise and rise of flexible warehouse space:

The continuing growth of online shopping drives demand for new adaptable warehousing

Over the past decade online shopping has escalated at a phenomenal rate in the UK resulting in a demand for warehouse space which has nearly doubled.

Between 2007 and March 2018, around 235 million sq ft of warehouse space was leased or purchased across the United Kingdom which is equivalent to more than 3,000 Wembley Stadiums. According to CBRE about 60% of this warehousing space is used by retailers, feeding the demand of online shopping.

According to John Munnelly, Head of Operations at John Lewis: “Logistics is becoming the new retail”. 65% of activity in logistics is retail driven. A greater shift towards online business means a greater demand and competition for cost effective 3PL storage space so companies can adapt to eCommerce demands and the demands of their customers.

Amazon took a quarter of available UK logistics space in 2016 and the key takeaway from this is that businesses are going to need a lot more warehouse space for storing more product in the UK. They are also looking for the ability to be able to make structural alterations to accommodate future demands.

Flexibility, agility, capability and dependability are the key factors when looking forward at warehousing. How can warehousing cope with the demand and growth of online shopping? One answer is modular designed semi-permanent structures. Rubb Buildings a is UK manufacturer of these type of structures, and the company has seen an increase in the demand for adaptable warehousing.

Rubb Buildings Ltd Managing Director Ian Hindmoor commented: “Feedback from our customers suggests that they are planning for the future, to be able to maintain the flow of their production and fulfil the demand from their customers. Rubb storage facilities provide an alternative and sustainable solution to traditional storage warehouses. To keep up with this ever-changing environment a semi-permanent fabric structure helps save on costs and is able to adapt to the changing requirements of the end user.”

Flexible warehouse space provides businesses with many unique advantages. The benefits of semi-permanent structures include fast design, manufacture and construction, with the flexibility to be adapted, modified, extended or relocated if needed. This allows clients to adapt quickly to change.

Find out more here.

The team from Rubb Buildings on the rise and rise of flexible warehouse space:

The continuing growth of online shopping drives demand for new adaptable warehousing

Over the past decade online shopping has escalated at a phenomenal rate in the UK resulting in a demand for warehouse space which has nearly doubled.

Between 2007 and March 2018, around 235 million sq ft of warehouse space was leased or purchased across the United Kingdom which is equivalent to more than 3,000 Wembley Stadiums. According to CBRE about 60% of this warehousing space is used by retailers, feeding the demand of online shopping.

According to John Munnelly, Head of Operations at John Lewis: “Logistics is becoming the new retail”. 65% of activity in logistics is retail driven. A greater shift towards online business means a greater demand and competition for cost effective 3PL storage space so companies can adapt to eCommerce demands and the demands of their customers.

Amazon took a quarter of available UK logistics space in 2016 and the key takeaway from this is that businesses are going to need a lot more warehouse space for storing more product in the UK. They are also looking for the ability to be able to make structural alterations to accommodate future demands.

Flexibility, agility, capability and dependability are the key factors when looking forward at warehousing. How can warehousing cope with the demand and growth of online shopping? One answer is modular designed semi-permanent structures. Rubb Buildings a is UK manufacturer of these type of structures, and the company has seen an increase in the demand for adaptable warehousing.

Rubb Buildings Ltd Managing Director Ian Hindmoor commented: “Feedback from our customers suggests that they are planning for the future, to be able to maintain the flow of their production and fulfil the demand from their customers. Rubb storage facilities provide an alternative and sustainable solution to traditional storage warehouses. To keep up with this ever-changing environment a semi-permanent fabric structure helps save on costs and is able to adapt to the changing requirements of the end user.”

Flexible warehouse space provides businesses with many unique advantages. The benefits of semi-permanent structures include fast design, manufacture and construction, with the flexibility to be adapted, modified, extended or relocated if needed. This allows clients to adapt quickly to change.

Find out more here.

Dematic is set for an extraordinary year: 2019 marks the 200th anniversary of the founding of this international enterprise. Friedrich Wilhelm Harkort launched the predecessor of the intralogistics automation specialist with the Mechanische Werkstätten Harkort & Co. in Wetter an der Ruhr in 1819. Since then, corporate development has been closely tied to the progressive achievements of the Industrial Revolution. Today Dematic is one of the leading suppliers of automation technology.

“Dematic looks back over a long tradition. Our innovative strength has decisively shaped the history of intralogistics. We continue to make that claim today,” says Rainer Buchmann, CEO of Dematic Central Europe. After the first mechanical loom in 1784 ushered in the first phase of the Industrial Revolution, the Mechanische Werkstätten Harkort & Co. early on also relied on water and steam-powered production plants. Already in 1819, the company developed the first steam-powered crane and produced indoor cranes in series starting in 1840.

With the introduction of electricity as a source of power in 1870, the second phase of the Industrial Revolution began. The internal combustion engine replaced the steam engine, and the chemical and electrical engineering industries developed into new leading sectors. Influenced by the resulting possibilities, another forerunner company was founded in 1900 with the Stöhr Elevatorenfabrik, which specialised in continuous conveyors, elevators and bucket conveyors. In 1922 – about half a century before the start of the third Industrial Revolution – the company built its first mobile conveyor belt. A few years later, Stöhr developed the first suspended conveyor technology. This was an advance that enabled far more effective use of space in the factories. At the end of the 1950s, Stöhr created a paradigm shift in intralogistics with the world’s first storage and retrieval system. Three years later, the company built the first fully automated warehouse for Bertelsmann, processing up to 15,000 orders a day. While the company was renamed Stöhr Förderanlagen Salzer GmbH in 1968, it also changed its focus from a pure product provider to a fully-fledged solutions provider, with the goal of supplying customers with complete systems.

The third Industrial Revolution began in 1970 when the first programmable logic controller (PLC) named Modicon 084 was launched. For the first time, machines and systems were digitally controlled and operated with this device. To date, PLCs have been widely used in automation technology. Three years later, Mannesmann AG, which in the meantime had taken over Stöhr, revolutionised the construction of distribution centres with the world’s first automated high-bay warehouse. In 1990, the company finally rose to become the global market leader in conveyor technology. Five years later, Mannesmann Demag was the world’s first complete supplier of intralogistics.

At the turn of the millennium, the fourth phase of the Industrial Revolution began with a primary focus on cyber-physical systems. These ensure decentralised dynamic control and the networking of all components via the Internet, mobile computers and cloud computing. After 2005, when Dematic GmbH & Co. KG was established as an independent enterprise, the intralogistics automation company revamped the market for automated small parts storage at that time and invented the Dematic Multishuttle. In 2011, the company once again demonstrated its innovative strength and presented the RapidStore storage and retrieval unit, the RapidPick order picking station, the Multishuttle Flex and the DC Director warehouse management software. The second generation of the Dematic Multishuttle, introduced in 2012, was lighter, faster and even more powerful.

Today Dematic is one of the leading providers of integrated automation technology, software and services for optimising the supply chain. “The greatest success of our company, however, is the fact that we have always succeeded in influencing the market in an innovative way and in retaining both qualified and committed employees. Without them we could not celebrate our 200th anniversary this year,” says Rainer Buchmann. “Over the years, our corporate values of integrity, collaboration, courage and excellence have shaped us.”