2 September, 2019

Meet the Toughest and Strongest with Doosan at IMHX

Posted on 2 September, 201925 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Heavy forklift supplier Doosan says it will be bringing the toughest and strongest to IMHX 2019 with live displays from four GB Taekwondo champions – including double Olympic Gold medalist, Jade Jones MBE, and three-times World Championships Gold medal winner, Bianca Walkden.

Visitors to the Doosan stand (Hall 19, Stand 19G80) will be treated to three, thrilling live demonstrations a day, throughout the show, together with photo opportunities with the athletes. Also taking part in the live displays will be Lutalo Muhammad, two-time Olympic medalist and Mahama Cho, Olympian and huge prospect for a medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020. Those feeling agile and courageous will even be given the chance to have a go themselves, with the very real possibility of becoming a champion for the day. There will be daily prizes for the highest scoring men and women.

Brian Grady, Sales and Marketing Director at Doosan Industrial Vehicle UK, says: “As sponsors of the recent World Taekwondo Championships 2019 in Manchester, Doosan are delighted to bring some of the top GB athletes from this exciting and dynamic sport to the IMHX for a series of live demonstrations that are sure to amaze, surprise and entertain. Taekwondo is a wonderful sport that shares three key traits with Doosan’s design ethos – those of strength, toughness and agility. It’s going to be quite a show – onlookers can’t help but be inspired.”

Alongside the live Taekwondo displays will be the very latest of Doosan’s counterbalance and warehouse truck models, from the new feature-rich B15R-7 three-wheel and B45X-7 four-wheel series of electric forklift trucks, right up to Doosan’s powerful, heavy-lifting diesel and gas models – including Doosan’s giant 25 tonne capacity counterbalance forklift, the DV250S-7, which will be hard to miss. However, there will be more than just counterbalance trucks to see.

Bathroom Supplier Turns on the Taps to Next-Level Digital Tech

Posted on 2 September, 201929 July, 2025 by David Priestman

A leading luxury bathroom products e-commerce business has successfully made the transition from pen-and-paper driven warehousing to next-level digital technology.

soak.com distributes through a number of B2C channels to the UK and Ireland (and are now expanding into Europe) but in acquiring a new, customised distribution centre in Liverpool to be nearer the Irish sea ports, they needed a digital solution which could easily be interfaced with its ERP system, implemented quickly, without a large capital investment and able to drive productivity improvements immediately.

SnapFulfil WMS gave the company the competitive pricing and configuring flexibility required to facilitate growth and reduce operating costs, plus the logistical benefits of using a proven solutions provider also helped in what was a massive ‘change management’ undertaking for soak.com.

Return on investment has already seen a 30% reduction in operating costs from digital over paper management, with the cost per item now under 50p, a significant saving.

Additionally, soak.com was able to fit out the purpose-built warehouse and secure all the necessary IT infrastructure and workforce to launch the SnapFulfil WMS solution across all its trading channels in just over three months – which is very quick.

soak.com Programme Manager, Mike Wood, says: “We spent a lot of time upfront defining our requirements and how SnapFulfil would integrate with our ERP order management system, so implementation has gone well – with the majority of our key milestones achieved and with no unexpected time or cost overruns. The SnapFulfil team were great on initial delivery and have maintained that level of quality service with their after sales support.

“We’ve quickly gained more insights into the efficiencies of our business management processes and have been able to react and improve accordingly because SnapFulfil records everything. Stock checks are 99.99% accurate, which has been verified by external practitioners, and the precision of our reporting has been equally impressive.

“We’ve also been able to do enhancement and optimisation work as additional delivery carriers come on board and working closely with the SnapFulfil Continuous Improvement Team means more management data, better understanding and a WMS that keeps giving valuable insight.

“We use temporary order pickers to support peak trading and the system is simple and easy to use as well – in just a couple of hours they can be up-and-running on SnapFulfil – which really helps with our demand peaks.”

Closing the original Nuneaton warehouse – where the company has its HQ – has been a major digital transformation, but soak.com now exceeds 14,000 pallets (previously 12,000) and a catalogue of up to 8,000 SKUs as part of a flourishing business.

Further optimisation of picking procedures and inventory management are the latest ongoing efficiency drivers at Liverpool, which by the end of summer 2019 will have taken up all of Nuneaton’s previous operational capacity.

SnapFulfil Project Manager, Victor Chidlaw, adds: “Soak.com’s product range required various picking methodologies to be deployed to cater for the different storage methods, stillages, extra-large pallets and carton roller options; all of this is managed simply and efficiently within SnapFulfil.”

“Using SnapFulfil has shown the business valuable metrics to make strategic decisions, strengthening the link between the Distribution Centre and the Head Office. Visibility across all channels has enabled resource forecasting for both labour and stock, thus enabling the operation to consistently hit the dispatch deadlines.”

Pic: ‘Soaking’ up all the benefits of best-of-breed SnapFulfil WMS is
Stephen Lea, Senior Systems Support Analyst.

Agility Invests $18 Million in Green Supply Chain Technologies

Posted on 2 September, 201931 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Emerging markets 3PL Agility has invested $18 million in green supply chain technologies so far through its corporate venture arm Agility Ventures.

The announcement came as part of Agility’s launch of its latest sustainability report, “Values into Action.” Agility says it is committed to adopting science-based targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction and has achieved third-party certification for its shipment emissions reporting.

Agility is pursuing an ambitious environmental strategy. By 2025, it plans to cut its emissions by 25% from 2016 levels. To reach that goal, the company is implementing renewable energy pilots in large facilities across the world and building to green standards as it adds over 300,000m2 of facilities to its portfolio of warehousing and light industrial facilities across the Middle East and Africa. Agility incorporates sustainability into business discussions with customers and offers emissions reports using a methodology certified to ISO 14064 standards. To drive green transformation across the industry, Agility Ventures has made green technologies one of its four core investment areas.

Agility Chairwoman Henadi Al-Saleh said: “Green technology is a major focus of our investment strategy, and we’re always on the lookout for dynamic new businesses that can revolutionize the supply chain to help protect the planet. We are looking at innovative solutions that drive business value by reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and reducing energy consumption at the same time.”

Green technology start-ups benefitting from the $18 million investment include Hyliion and TVP Solar. Hyliion is a hybrid technology trucking industry that reduces fuel consumption and corresponding emissions by 30 percent. It achieves this by recycling kinetic energy from braking that would otherwise be wasted. TVP Solar is a break-through, high-vacuum solar thermal technology serving the most energy-demanding applications, such as air conditioning, desalination, and process heat. Already deployed in the Middle East – including in Agility’s corporate headquarters – TVP solutions operate autonomously with no need for cleaning, directly replacing fossil fuels with cheaper, cleaner, solar heat.

Agility CEO Tarek Sultan said the company has strived to set high standards for corporate citizenship over the past decade, particularly in the areas of environmental responsibility, humanitarian relief logistics, and fair labour practices.

“We’ve invested heavily in our human rights approach over the years and tried to lead by example, especially in emerging markets. Our community outreach program has helped more than 1.6 million people in need and we’ve supported the education of over 36,000 students around the world in the last three years. In partnership with the humanitarian community, Agility has donated logistics expertise and services to more than 45 major humanitarian operations in countries ranging from Indonesia to Peru. Agility’s investments in the environment are the company’s new frontier.”

Damco Extends Partnership with BluJay to Boost Performance and Speed

Posted on 2 September, 201929 July, 2025 by Keith McKinley

Ocean and Air forwarder Damco has signed to extend its deal with BluJay’s Transportation Management for Forwarders software platform, moving from on-premise to the cloud. A customer of the Global Trade Network since 2011, Damco has been a provider of freight forwarding services for more than 100 years, helping customers manage their cargo.

Damco is extending its partnership with BluJay to increase efficiency, digitise its customer interactions, and better position its business for the future. With file management excellence as a main business objective, Damco sees the opportunity to improve productivity and profitability with BluJay. Damco’s customers will benefit from increased speed and functionality to improve the experience for bookings, submitting documents, and more. Damco is currently running BluJay’s Transportation Management on premise and looks forward to upgrading to the cloud, along with future plans to add integrated solutions to best serve their customers.

“We value the history of our partnership with BluJay. Damco has appreciated working with BluJay’s experts for so many years, and they will take us from today to tomorrow to support our business objectives,” said Martin Ring, Global Chief Operations Officer at Damco.

Ring adds that the long-standing relationship, along with commitment from BluJay to take Damco to the next level played a major role in choosing BluJay. “We’ve seen the capabilities added in the past few years – the game has really been upped, and it’s critical in our industry to keep moving forward with technology to stay ahead. Damco will take advantage of the continually enhanced functionality available from BluJay to run our business as efficiently as possible.”

Damco will better leverage capabilities of the BluJay platform, namely, bringing invoicing, vendor payments, and master data into Transportation Management for Forwarders (TMFF).

Ocado to Establish New Facility at SEGRO Logistics Park Purfleet

Posted on 2 September, 201925 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Ocado Retail, the new joint venture between Ocado Group and M&S, is to establish a new 304,355 sq ft facility at SEGRO Logistics Park Purfleet, which it says will create up to 1,500 local jobs and help meet demand from its increasing customer base to the East of London.

Ocado’s fifth Customer Fulfilment Centre (CFC) will sit on the entire 19-acre site, which is located inside the M25 alongside the A13. This will enable quick and easy access to the orbital motorway and the wider strategic road network, as well as providing an artery directly into the large London market, enabling the company to offer a better service for online shoppers in the area.

The unit at SEGRO Logistics Park Purfleet will combine the space, power and connectivity to house Ocado’s cutting-edge, robotic packing operation, along with a BREEAM Excellent sustainability rating. Work is due to begin on site later this month.
Ocado employs a hub and spoke operating model, where Customer Fulfilment Centres are the hubs from where customer orders are fulfilled, and local spokes are from where the majority of customer orders are delivered. SEGRO Logistics Park Purfleet is the second Ocado facility in SEGRO’s portfolio, joining the 68,000 sq ft spoke at the Origin development in Park Royal.

Böwe Systec Announces Parcel+Post Expo Plans

Posted on 2 September, 201925 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Sorting specialist Böwe Systec has announced its plans for next month’s Parcel+Post Expo in Amsterdam.

The rapid growth in the volume of items and the demand for ever shorter delivery times make it imperative to optimize processes. Smart sorting automation is an integrated concept from Böwe Systec that consists of a suite of solutions that do just that. As a one stop shop the automation specialist covers the entire post and parcel logistics chain and Böwe Systec customers receive a complete, all-embracing package from a single source.

With its OptiSorter, which can be installed as a horizontal or vertical variant depending upon the space available, Böwe Systec is showing an ideal, intuitively operated solution that delivers total flexibility and maximum performance. Handling up to 18,000 items per hour, the OptiSorter can cope with pretty much anything from banana boxes to lipsticks and even business cards. It can even handle the kinds of items that are often sent from Asia – very small and light, sometimes irregularly shaped and often wrapped in plastic film or sealed with adhesive tape. This is because of its unique Push-Tray technology, which ensures a gentle and, above all, reliable sorting process that comes into its own precisely where other systems hit their limits.

Another of the show highlights is the launch of the Double Split-Tray sorter. This has been specifically designed for sorting light items weighing up to 5 kilograms. Also known as a Bomb-Bay sorter, it comes into its own in areas such as e-commerce, omni-channel, retail fulfilment, post or pharmaceuticals. Its specially shaped trays mean that besides the usual standards it can also sort products such as clothing, books, pharmaceuticals, polybags, multimedia and flat items or jewellery. Irregularly shaped or round items can also be handled without any problem. Both sides of the tray open simultaneously and the item falls flat and directly into the sorting destination. Its major advantage is that the Double Split-Tray sorter is fitted with two compartments per tray, which doubles its capacity and shortens processing times.

For post and mixed mail sorting there is the Simex family, consisting of the Simex Letter and the Simex Flexi sorting systems. The Simex Flexi is able, for example, to sort small C6 postcards just as reliably as large B4 format letters up to 20 mm thick. Magazines, newspapers, catalogs or polywrapped items can all be processed by the system – at high speeds of up to 30,000 items per hour.

Both, OptiSorter and Simex systems, are controlled by the fully integrated Böwe Sort software. The consistent design of the software across all Böwe Systec systems and its intuitive operation lay the foundation for considerable productivity increases. Sorting schemes can be prepared in no time at all and processes are monitored from start to finish. Additional features such as automated returns processing or walk sorting further improve the sorting processes.

Anyone looking for competitive software platforms for intralogistics is looking in the right place by coming to Böwe Systec. Innovative Auto-ID systems including Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Warehouse Control Systems (WCS), and serialization solutions also form part of the product range of this automation specialist. With RFID there is nothing standing in the way of the one hundred percent tracking of goods in real time. All of which makes Böwe Systec the first port of call for integrated intralogistics solutions.

Make a success of your growth by visiting Böwe Systec on booth 1030 in Hall 8 at Parcel+Post Expo in Amsterdam from October 1 to 3 2019.

Efficient Toy Distribution

Posted on 2 September, 201925 July, 2025 by David Priestman

A new warehouse installation is proving a big leap in distribution efficiency for the Australian operation of Toll Group’s big-name toys and games customer. Toll perform all the Australian warehousing and distribution for a leading global toy manufacturer based out of a 36,000 square metre multi-customer site in Sydney. Almost half the facility is now dedicated to the customer’s products, distributed to major retailers and independent toy stores throughout the country.

To achieve the efficiency and requirements of a major client, Toll looked to put sortation in place to better manage the picking process with speed and accuracy. Through a competitive process, logistics specialist Swisslog was chosen as the solution delivered more flexibility and opportunities to deliver other benefits in the future as well as an expected 200% productivity improvement.

The new solution completely changed the baseline manual warehouse operation; enabling Toll to provide higher distribution volumes of retail ready cartons, picked for each store in less time, with more efficiency and using less space. Moving to wave picking techniques, cartons in a wide variety of shapes and sizes are fed to an automated sortation system that handles up to 20 customer orders at a time and 95% of the product range.

The entire system is managed by Swisslog’s SynQ software. This takes customer orders from Toll’s system and coordinates all the equipment and controls of the automated operation, delivering efficiency, speed and accuracy. As pallets of product are delivered by forklift to each of two infeed stations, staff manually depalletise cartons and place them on conveyor, where they are automatically scanned and labelled at high speed (approximately one every two seconds).

Travelling along conveyor, cartons are then merged onto an Activated Roller Belt (ARB) sorter. The system was designed around the ARB sorter as the requirement is for up to 4,000 cartons per hour, the sweet spot for this type of system. It takes up far less space, and has a much lower cost, than large scale cross belt, sliding shoe or tilt tray sorters. The mechanics of the sorter also means gentle handling even at high speed.

The entire sortation system is just 36m long, fitting easily into the existing warehouse. The sorter feeds cartons onto one of 20 dispatch lane conveyors, which are gravity braked to continue the gentle handling operation. Swisslog’s SynQ control system spreads the load as evenly as possible across dispatch lanes, to ensure that lanes are not full while others are awaiting products. SynQ can also direct a carton around the sortation loop if the required dispatch lane is full.

“Our initial start-up has shown that the system is achieving even better productivity than anticipated,” says Toll’s Dean Boulter. “Getting through the picking wave faster means we can start the afternoon shift later, giving customers a later cut off time for orders.”

The project had to be delivered in an existing warehouse, which involved isolating the sorter area while it was installed and commissioned. Despite this restriction, the project delivery was well managed. The sortation system will also be used for other customers, where relevant, delivering productivity across the warehouse. Toll Group is anticipating getting more out of the system, working with Swisslog as a long-term partner to make refinements that will bring additional benefits to the operation and add further functionality.

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