PLUS Retail expands with WITRON

The Dutch food retailer PLUS Retail B.V. together with the logistics partner WITRON Logistik + Informatik is expanding its national distribution centre for dry goods in Oss, which is currently in the middle of the realisation phase.

The reason for the expansion of logistics capacities is the merger of PLUS with the Dutch food retailer Coop, whose logistics processes will be partially integrated into the new highly automated PLUS distribution centre.

In 2023, a substantial part of the 550 stores will be supplied from a range of more than 12,000 different items. WITRON’s OPM, CPS, and DPS solutions is capable to pick more than 452,000 cases onto roll containers or into store totes in a store-friendly and error-free way.

“Both PLUS and Coop place maximum focus on service quality, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and sustainability,” according to PLUS Supply Chain Director, Rowell Versleijen. “That’s why we embrace innovation and state-of-the-art technology in all areas of our business.”

The heart of the distribution centre is WITRON’s OPM system, which was originally designed for 20 COM machines and will now be expanded by four COM machines. The automated tray warehouse in front of the picking area will also be expanded by eight stacker cranes (48 in total) and 45,700 storage locations (274,500 in total). The automated pallet warehouse will receive one additional stacker crane (11 in total) and 2,700 storage locations (29,500 in total).

The integration of all additional racking units, vehicles, depalletisers, stretch-wrappers, as well as their conveyor system and IT-based connections will be carried out in the existing building. Expansion options already planned for the warehouse will now be utilised.

“Due to the modular design of our end-to-end solutions and their physical compactness, we can develop highly flexible future concepts for our customers during the design phase already, which can be conveniently integrated into an existing system to increase volume, grow product range, add pick stations, or change business and material flow processes. Regardless of whether the system has been in operation for many years or, as in the case of PLUS – the system is being build,” explains Jack Kuypers, Senior Vice President North-West Europe at WITRON.

The merger of PLUS and Coop under the PLUS brand creates what is currently the third-largest full-service food retailer in the Netherlands, supplying more than 4.5 million customers per week with everyday goods, holding a market share of around 10%. The company, with annual sales of approx. €5bn, employs more than 40,000 staff members.