25 August, 2026

Supply Chain Reliability with Success Services

Posted on 25 August, 202627 August, 2026 by David Priestman

REWE is securing its fresh food distribution now and in the future with comprehensive support from Cimcorp. With facilities typically handling over 650,000 units daily, the relentless pace and volume of REWE’s warehouse operations require services that can ensure continuous and punctual deliveries – especially in major urban markets, where missing a delivery window can mean failing to deliver altogether.

Deliveries to big cities like Berlin are a logistical tightrope… Missing the delivery window means a significant financial loss… highlighting the time-sensitive nature of fresh goods logistics. That’s why we demand not only reliability but the ability to act fast and prevent delays.

says Matthias Menzel, General Manager at the company’s largest fresh and chilled goods warehouse in Oranienburg, Germany.

A multifaceted service portfolio for peak performance

Cimcorp’s Success Services for REWE have been meticulously designed to guarantee the highest possible system uptime and thereby product availability for over 370 supermarkets and 580 stores served by the Oranienburg facility daily. The services include:

• Preventive Maintenance Service: This solution brings expert technicians to regularly analyse and report on the condition of REWE’s automated handling systems, perform fundamental maintenance and collaborate with in-house staff on best practices. By scheduling comprehensive inspections twice a year, REWE is able to proactively address wear and fatigue, reducing the risk of unexpected failures and safeguarding consistent, top-tier performance throughout the year.

• System Support Service: Offering rapid and reliable remote assistance, this service acts as a critical safety net. REWE’s staff receive direct support from highly trained specialists who diagnose and resolve technical issues that cannot be managed on site, significantly reducing the likelihood and duration of production stoppages.

• On-site Support Service: For incidents requiring immediate physical intervention, expert personnel are available to deliver corrective maintenance, repairs and ongoing preventive measures. The on-site response is structured flexibly, with service available six days a week – and extended coverage on Sundays and public holidays as needed – ensuring that even in urgent breakdown scenarios, downtime remains minimal.

• System Management Service: In an era of increasing IT security challenges, REWE’s system management offering remotely monitors, protects and maintains the IT backbone of its automated conveyor systems. This includes everything from antivirus protection and network administration to database oversight, always reinforcing system reliability and proactive threat detection.

Menzel underscores the necessity of strong preventive maintenance and fast, professional support, both on-site and remote: “For us, reliability is essential; our markets count on timely and error-free deliveries, and our system must reflect that expectation. We rely on our partners to deliver services that match the urgency of our market’s expectations.”

Empowering people and embracing the future

The transition to automation, paired with robust service, has been driven not only by the need for reliability but also by workforce realities. With labour shortages and physically demanding tasks impacting the sector, automation – supported by effective maintenance and support services – ensures that existing staff are better utilised and not overstretched.

“We want Cimcorp in the background running the system, a strong partner ready to react fast if something happens that we cannot solve ourselves,” Menzel explains. REWE’s commitment to comprehensive training means dedicated technicians are fully equipped to manage the system, with Cimcorp’s team always on standby for escalations.

Setting new standards in retail logistics

REWE’s investment in Success Services underscores the retailer’s strategic vision: to maintain operational excellence, optimise employee welfare and guarantee the highest standards of service for every store, every day. In a sector where timing and reliability define competitive advantage, the company’s pioneering approach is setting a new benchmark for logistics performance and resilience.

“Our customers’ success is our mission,” explains Heikki Seppälä, Head of Services at Cimcorp Group. “For REWE and clients like them, we secure uptime because system downtime is simply not an option, especially in fresh food logistics, where every second counts.”

Warehouse Advantage from Decisions, not Robots

Posted on 25 August, 202621 August, 2026 by David Priestman

As 3PLs, retailers and ecommerce operators face tighter service levels, labour pressure and unpredictable demand, the value of automation is shifting from reducing travel to orchestrating the entire operation. By Mike Harris (pictured, below), Vice President, Ocado Mobile Robot Systems, Ocado Group

Warehouse operators do not have a shortage of technology. They have a shortage of connected decision making.

Autonomous mobile robots have already proved they can reduce walking and improve picking productivity. But removing travel is only one part of the challenge. Orders, labour, congestion and exceptions demand intelligent coordination. Picking, replenishment, returns, sortation and dispatch must operate as a single continuous flow rather than five separate processes that happen to sit under the same roof.

When these decisions remain fragmented across systems and teams, automation simply moves the bottleneck. A robot that picks faster helps little if the pallet it depends on is still waiting at the dock, or if the exception it just created sits unresolved on a supervisor’s list.

That is why the next phase of warehouse automation will not be defined by how many robots an operator deploys. It will be defined by how intelligently the operation coordinates people, robots, tasks and workflows.

From task execution to orchestration

Many AMR systems are designed to receive a task and execute it efficiently. That delivers value, but it leaves the most important operational decisions elsewhere, often with the warehouse management system or the supervisor, who is left reconciling robot activity with operational needs. Chuck AMR, powered by Ocado IQ, takes a different approach.

Ocado IQ continuously evaluates factors such as order urgency, pick location, available resources, workload and congestion. It groups, prioritises and reallocates work as conditions change. The system does not simply direct a robot to the next location; it determines what the operation should do next and adjusts as soon as that answer changes.

The Ocado IQ App extends the same system directed logic into manual and hard to reach areas, including mezzanines, high shelves and bulky item zones. The Bridge gives supervisors live visibility across the whole operation – pick rates, queues, priority order tracking, fleet availability, congestion and service level performance.

Together, these capabilities turn Chuck from a point solution into part of a coordinated fulfilment system. The value of that coordination is felt most clearly in the way the floor runs day to day.

What a leaner fleet feels like on the floor

A smaller, smarter fleet is not just a lower capital cost. With fewer robots competing for the same aisles, congestion eases, idling decreases, and there are fewer near misses and collisions. A fleet sized to the work rather than the floor also needs fewer chargers and less parking, handing that space back to the operation. The result is a floor that runs smoother, safer and more predictably, not because it is emptier, but because everything on it is working harder.

One platform for three very different challenges

For 3PLs, variability is the business model. Different customers bring different order profiles, seasonal patterns, workflows and service level commitments. The automation platform must be configurable enough to support that complexity without turning every new customer or peak period into another technology project.

For retailers, the challenge is omnichannel coordination. Distribution centres may be supporting store replenishment, direct to consumer orders, marketplace fulfilment and returns at the same time. Optimising one workflow in isolation is no longer enough.

For ecommerce operators, the defining pressures are volatility and speed. Order volumes change quickly, carrier cut off times are unforgiving and common exceptions cannot be allowed to interrupt the flow of work. The operating realities are different, but the requirement is the same: an intelligent system that adapts continuously, rather than one that depends on static task lists and manual replanning.

Why mixed warehouses need mixed picking methods

A warehouse is not one uniform environment. It contains wide and narrow aisles, fast- and slow-moving products, dense and sparse pick faces, mezzanines and traffic patterns that shift by the hour. Applying one robot behaviour everywhere inevitably creates compromises.

Chuck supports two intelligent picking modes, configured by aisle. In Sweep, an associate works with one robot through an aisle, a focused pairing that keeps picking orderly and traffic flow in narrower aisles. In Rendezvous, multiple robots are positioned at controlled points (no congestions or blockages) along high velocity aisles so associates can move straight from one assignment to the next.

Crucially, these modes operate concurrently. The behaviour belongs to the aisle, a single robot adapts as it moves, pairing closely with an associate in a narrow Sweep aisle, then shifting into Rendezvous in a wider one. No bot is tied to a single mode, and no part of the floor is fenced off for one behaviour.

Integrated pick-to-light guidance directs every pick with immediate visual feedback, ensuring speed and accuracy.

A better way to evaluate AMR platforms

The AMR category has matured quickly, and operators now have real choice in the market. That is a good thing, but it means evaluation criteria need to mature alongside it. Deployment speed, robot count and travel reduction are no longer the questions that separate a genuinely intelligent platform from a well-engineered task executor.

Chuck is designed to coordinate people, robots, orders and manual workflows as one system. That makes it a strong fit for complex 3PL, retail and ecommerce environments, where sustained performance depends on more than moving a tote from one location to another.

Scale through intelligence, not robot count

When demand increases, adding robots may be part of the answer, but it should not be the entire strategy: add capacity when the work genuinely calls for it, not by default.

That is why the Chuck fleet is built in layers: core bots for the everyday baseline, flex bots switched on for ordinary spikes like a busy Monday or a promotional bump, and peak bots for the events you plan around, like Black Friday. You scale up deliberately, in step with demand, never carrying the cost and congestion of a peak-sized fleet on an average Tuesday.

That only works if the platform underneath is built to scale, improving how work is allocated and prioritised before it starts counting robots, letting operators add or remove capacity without disruptive reprogramming, and keep benefiting from new software capabilities rather than being locked to the specification it shipped with.

Ocado mobile robot systems can deliver two to three times the productivity of manual cart-based picking, reduce labour costs by as much as 50%, go live in as little as 14 weeks and achieve payback in just six months. The platform has been deployed across more than 120 sites to date, spanning 3PL, retail, ecommerce, pharma and apparel operations.

The winners in the next era of fulfilment will not be the businesses with the most robots. They will be the businesses whose systems make the best decisions and turn those decisions into action across every workflow and every shift.

Air Freighter Service Connects Helsinki to Doha

Posted on 25 August, 202625 August, 2026 by David Priestman

Qatar Airways Cargo has announced the launch of its first scheduled freighter services from Helsinki, Finland, effective 2nd September.

Operating once weekly with a Boeing 777 freighter on the Doha – Budapest – Helsinki – Doha route, the new service will provide 100 tonnes of export cargo capacity out of Helsinki each week. Complementing the airline’s existing 7 weekly passenger services on the Doha-Helsinki-Doha route, the dedicated freighter will increase total weekly cargo capacity from Helsinki to more than 170 tonnes, while the widebody belly-hold flights offer over 70 tonnes weekly, each way.

The launch of Qatar Airways Cargo’s first scheduled freighter service to Helsinki, alongside the reinstatement of Qatar Airways passenger frequencies provides customers in Finland greater access to the airline’s extensive network in Europe, Middle East, Africa, India, Asia and Australia through its state-of-the-art hub in Doha.

Helsinki is a strategic gateway for high-value and specialised cargo, connecting Finnish and Nordic businesses to global supply chains. Key export commodities from Finland include high-tech products, electronics, industrial machinery and spare parts, pharmaceuticals, healthcare products, perishables and e-commerce shipments.

Import flows are driven by electronics, consumer goods, automotive components, industrial equipment and e-commerce, underscoring Helsinki’s role as both a manufacturing and distribution hub.

Qatar Airways Cargo’s portfolio, including TechLift, Pharma, Fresh, and Courier among other products, is designed to meet the unique transport and specialised handling requirements of these commodities, ensuring quality, efficiency, and reliability throughout the journey.

In coordination with its Road Feeder Service (RFS) partners, Qatar Airways Cargo also provides scheduled and ad hoc trucking solutions to and from Helsinki across Scandinavia and the Baltic region. These services extend the reach of the airline’s global network beyond the airport, providing customers with seamless connectivity, greater flexibility, and efficient access to key regional markets.

Customers can book their cargo on the new Helsinki freighter service through a digital booking platform, where they can seamlessly book shipments across the airline’s global network and full portfolio of products.