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Tag: warehouse automation

HAI claims success for e-commerce project

Posted on by David Priestman

HAI Robotics, a global leader in Autonomous Case-handling Robotic (ACR) system for warehouse logistics, is calling its first project in the UK with Chinese cross-border warehouse operator WINIT a success, as deliveries for holiday shopping parcels are about to reach customers.

The project provides 120,000 storage locations with shelving height of 4.3m in a 10,000 sq m warehouse in Tamworth, Staffordshire. By deploying 100 HAIPICK A42 robots and 16 On-conveyor Picking Workstations in the warehouse, goods-handling efficiency is improved between three- and four-fold compared with manual work, with a daily handling volume of up to 50,000 pieces.

The warehouse owner WINIT is a Shanghai-based provider of overall solutions for cross-border e-commerce, and runs overseas warehousing and distribution services in Australia, the US and several European countries. With the project going live, it saw its warehouse throughput spiked, comfortably accommodating the inrushing order-fulfilment requests for cross-border warehousing and logistics from merchants around the world, driven by the online shopping boom since the Covid-19 lockdown.

Demands for global warehousing service has dramatically surged with the flourishing cross-border e-commerce businesses in recent. Custom statistics indicate that in 2020, Chinese cross-border trade volume amounted to RMB1.69 trillion (€0.23 trillion), rising 31.1% from the previous year and the figure is estimated to go up to RMB16 trillion (€2.21 trillion) in 2021. By 2020, the number of overseas warehouses owned by Chinese operators exceeded 1,800, totalling more than 12 million sq m in land area.

However, cross-border warehouse operators are often confronted with some hard nuts to crack.

To start with, a major issue that constantly vexes warehouse owners operating overseas is staff shortages and the rising cost of hiring local labourers. They also found it a headache to maintain a stable workforce in their warehouses, which are often located near commercial hubs in industrialised countries, even with above-average level wages. Automating their warehouses has become a pressing issue.

The second challenge is the huge number of SKUs owned by different merchants, which could range from consumer electronics to baby toys. The fact has raised concerns of storage density and picking efficiency. To meet consumers’ growing demands for short parcels delivery time, furnishing a warehouse with robots that can handle complex order-fulfilment tasks can be a rewarding decision.

Last but not least, a flexible warehousing solution that can be swiftly deployed weighs heavily for cross-border warehouse owners whose growing businesses can’t wait for too long.

WINIT, who found no shortcuts to address those concerns, found the HAI Robotics’ solution a good match for the needs of high storage density, goods-handling accuracy, operation efficiency and flexibility.

With the HAIPICK A42 robot that allows picking and sorting with eight loads in one movement, one worker can handle 450 pieces of goods per hour, which is three to four times faster than manual work. The solution has also improved storage density by 130% with spaces from 0.25m to 6.5m high being fully utilised. The HAIPICK system, which supports intelligent totes identification and labels reading, boasts 99.99% picking and sorting accuracy.

Kane Luo, Vice President of Sales from HAI Robotics, said that a customised plan was made for the project to improve performance, including elevated storage density and innovative workflows to facilitate necessary manual work: “We were primarily obliged to provide ACR system. However, we’ve taken into consideration the whole process from inbounds to packaging of outbound goods. The workstations were also ergonomically redesigned according to overseas standards.”

Sportisimo DC features state-of-the-art automation

Posted on by David Priestman

In Sportisimo’s selection process, the intralogistics expertise offered by SSI Schaefer scored points with the sporting goods retailer, and subsequently the contract was awarded to them: Sportisimo’s newly built distribution centre in Hrušov/Ostrava, Czech Republic, will be equipped with an automated intralogistics solution by SSI Schaefer. The hall will be built on brownfield land in Contera Park Ostrava D1. In addition to supplying both branches, the new distribution centre will also supply Sportisimo customers who have placed orders through the online store. The future solution will focus on the automation aspect.

The contract between Sportisimo and SSI Schaefer was signed in May 2021. It is an important project that underscores the development and goals of the sporting goods retailer. Currently, project planning is in full swing, and the construction of the hall has also begun. Operation of the new facility is scheduled to begin in January 2023, which is a record time for such a large and complex project. In the future, Sportisimo will use Contera Park Ostrava D1 to supply both its branches and online customers in the Czech Republic and the surrounding countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

The new logistics solution is designed to ensure maximum warehouse efficiency. “More than 6,000 metres of conveying systems from SSI Schaefer will be installed in Sportisimo’s hall, connecting the different warehouse areas – from depalletising and goods-in to the automated small parts warehouse (ASPW), the picking area and shipping,” explained Marian Gono, Managing Director of SSI Schaefer Systems International in the Czech Republic.

“Along the conveying sections, 150 workstations will be set up where all orders and returns will be consolidated. The ASPW is designed to be 23m high and currently has 11 aisles with a capacity of over 300,000 cartons. It accepts cartons arriving directly from suppliers. The plan for the future is to expand the small parts warehouse by adding more aisles.”

He adds that a four-story pick tower will be built next to the ASPW. It is made up of racks with aisles. A centre aisle will have additional conveying systems as well as workstations for consolidating picked orders. Plus, a large steel platform will be built in the hall, which will be manufactured at the SSI Schaefer Group plant in Hranice na Moravě. This platform will hold the picking stations used to pack orders and prepare them for shipping.

“From the very beginning, we tried to make the transport distances as short as possible when delivering the material prior to assembly,” Gono emphasised. “That is why we are making full use of our production facility in Hranice na Moravě, which significantly reduces our carbon footprint. Not only are we shortening the transport distances, but we are also supporting the Czech economy.”

Rapid Order Processing at Very’s Automated DC

Posted on by David Priestman

Advanced automation technology from Knapp is helping The Very Group to fulfil customer orders in just 30 minutes at Skygate, its new distribution centre in the East Midlands (UK).

Launched on the day that the UK’s first lockdown was announced in March 2020, the 850,000 sq ft facility has secured a number of benefits for the online retailer and its customers, including greater product availability, faster refunds and enhanced ability to handle peak trading periods.

“A fast, seamless fulfilment operation is vital for great customer experience, and that’s what we focused on when developing Skygate’s highly automated technology,” commented Phil Hackney, Chief Operating Officer at The Very Group. “Throughout the pandemic, that technology has helped us to manage huge volumes of orders. It also enabled us to bring all of our clothing and footwear returns under one roof for the first time and means we’re well positioned for future growth.”

Despite a surge in orders during its first year as the pandemic fuelled demand for e-commerce, Skygate managed to deliver the performance required by Very. The automated picking, sortation and packaging technology from KNAPP means that orders can be ready for dispatch within 30 minutes, compared to around four hours at Very’s previous fulfilment centres. The fastest order to date, processed in July 2021, was ready for dispatch in just 17 minutes.

Operating 24/7, Skygate has processed over 40 million items since its launch and has significant potential for future expansion. The efficiency of processes at the facility, combined with the consolidation of three sites into one fulfilment and returns centre, will contribute up to £25m in efficiency savings per year for The Very Group. Skygate’s central location – close to the M1 motorway and adjacent to East Midlands Airport – combined with the on-site rail freight terminal will save Very an estimated one million road miles a year.

Designed for peaks

With Skygate responsible for the fulfilment of 95% of the Group’s customer orders, KNAPP worked closely with Very to ensure that the automation would be able to handle peak volumes with the required speed and accuracy. The logistics technology enables the pre-picking of orders on high-traffic days, which helped Very to cope with record-breaking Christmas and Black Friday trading in 2020. Sales for Very.co.uk increased by over 25% year-on-year in the seven weeks to Christmas 2020, with Skygate processing an impressive 3.9 million orders during this period, peaking at 265 orders per minute.

Key to both rapid order fulfilment and efficient returns processing at Skygate is KNAPP’s EcoPocket system. This pocket sorter technology uses a matrix sortation algorithm to arrange products in RFID-enabled pockets into the correct sequence to fulfil customer orders at the packing stations.

Items are placed in the pockets at a series of workstations, where totes of product arrive automatically from KNAPP’s OSR Shuttle Evo storage system. Taking an item from a tote, the operator scans it and drops it into a pocket with a single swipe action.

One of the largest shuttle systems in Europe, the automatic store features over 400 shuttles and provides almost 640,000 storage locations. Combined with 120,000 pockets in the EcoPocket system and 26,000 pallet locations in the manual store, Skygate houses an

One-touch returns handling

The automated handling solution at Skygate also enables one-touch processing of returns, with products available for resale within 30 minutes and customer refunds provided faster than ever before. Returns are prioritized, with two-thirds leaving the site within 24 hours and the overwhelming majority within three days.

A vast dynamic buffer of EcoPockets on the third mezzanine level of the warehouse makes returns processing a breeze and gives Skygate the capacity to handle 80,000 returned items per day.

Also featuring a dispatch sorter with 96 destination chutes, the automated logistics solution is controlled by KNAPP’s KiSoft suite of software, comprising Warehouse Management System (WMS), Warehouse Control System (WCS) and machine control systems for seamless integration.

“We are extremely proud to have developed this brand-new distribution centre from concept to reality in just three years,” commented Anton Tschurwald, Vice President Retail Solutions for KNAPP AG. “A strong spirit of partnership with the customer meant that Skygate was delivered within budget and on time, despite going live during the COVID-19 lockdown.”

To keep the complex project on schedule despite the lockdown restrictions, KNAPP worked with Very to develop – within just a week – the infrastructure and processes to continue start-up of the system by the British team with support from technicians working remotely from Austria. “The significant challenges were overcome through a potent combination of teamwork and technology,” said Tschurwald.

To ensure maximum system uptime, a 33-strong team of KNAPP Customer Service technicians is based permanently at Skygate, carrying out comprehensive preventive maintenance and dealing quickly with any issues that arise.

Sacchi extends operations with shuttle technology

Posted on by David Priestman

The Sacchi Group (part of Sonepar Group), one of Italy’s leading electrical product wholesalers, has selected Vanderlande as a partner for a new ADAPTO goods-to-person (GtP) solution inside its existing warehousing facility in Desio, north of Milan.

With nearly 100 points of sale and about 1,400 employees, the Sacchi Group offers an assortment of approximately 1.5 million products. Previously, Vanderlande supplied the company with a miniload system, which is now being expanded with Vanderlande’s ADAPTO shuttle technology. Vanderlande’s ability to link the two systems together, combined with the excellent relationship between the two companies, were ultimately the decisive factors in securing this latest GtP project.

The solution will initially include manual receiving stations, picking stations served by dedicated picking lifts and clearing stations. In addition to erection and closing systems, the shipping sorter will be expanded. The ADAPTO system will have 58 ADAPTO shuttles spread over 29 levels.

With installation work commencing next April and operations due to begin in Q4 2023, the flexible and scalable ADAPTO system has the capacity for further expansion over the coming decade in order to accommodate Sacchi’s predicted year-on-year volume growth.

“Our business is growing quickly as a result of internal development and acquisitions, and our supply chain is our main strength in this market, as it allows us to balance high service levels with competitive costs,” says Marco Brunetti, President and CEO of Sacchi Group.

“With the full support of Sonepar HQ, and in particular of the GVP Supply Chain, Jo Verbeek, we decided to invest in our distribution centre in Desio, strategically located close to Milan,” adds Luca Maggioni, Sacchi Group’s VP Supply Chain. “To this end, we’ll be extending our building with a new 20,000 m2 construction – the main element of which will be the new ADAPTO system. Our goal is to improve our omnichannel business in order to reach our 40,000 customers faster and more efficiently.”

“We are very proud to further establish our relationship with Sacchi and the Sonepar Group,” says Terry Verkuijlen, Vice President Warehouse Solutions at Vanderlande. “We believe that extending their current operation with Vanderlande’s ADAPTO GtP solution will enable Sacchi to further grow and optimise their operations for many years to come.”

Technology solutions ready for Black Friday

Posted on by David Priestman

For the world of logistics, and in particular for e-commerce warehouses and postal hubs, the Black Friday period – which coincides with the beginning of the peak season – represents a challenge in the fields of packaging, labelling, sorting and shipping. Sitma, an Italian company specialising in designing, building and selling complete solutions for logistics automation, looks at the Black Friday stats and the challenges that sit behind them.

Originally an American concept, Black Friday has now become a key event in the year and takes place mainly online. The same goes for Cyber Monday, which is often stretched out to become Cyber Week. It involves the sale of products in disparate categories including, in particular, smartphones, smartwatches, video games and other technological devices.

According to the latest estimates, in 2020 Black Friday generated revenues of over US$9bn in the United States alone, compared to US$7.4bn the previous year. Cyber Monday did even better, totalling US$10.8bn in 2020 compared to US$9.4bn the previous year.

In Europe, the country that spends the most during Black Friday is Great Britain, which in 2019 invested over £8.5bn in the sale of products, followed by Germany £6.3bn in 2019) and France (over £5bn in 2019). Italy, instead, comes fourth, with just over £2bn pounds spent in 2020, compared with £2.8bn the previous year. It should be noted that 2020, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, saw a slight decrease in the value of goods sold, although the volumes remained high.

Sales volumes: one of the main issues is the sheer number of orders that the supply chain has to handle in a short period of time. In England, for example, sales during the month of October 2020 represented 28.1% of all sales throughout last year. In the same country, according to the Fashion Network portal, a 140% increase in orders is expected during the month of November in online sales alone.

This peak causes pressure on the entire distribution chain, which even during Black Friday and Cyber Monday is expected to meet the same standards of quality. Also according to Fashion Network, 37% of British consumers say they would not buy again from a seller if delivery of their order is delayed. To meet the workload, the entire supply chain must operate in a synchronised and efficient manner.

Packaging: Preparation for shipping, i.e. packaging, requires not only high-performance machines but great flexibility. The latest trends require the product to be packaged reducing volumes as much as possible, in order to optimise transportation and save material. Sitma can offer the benefit of a 40-year track record in this field, with solutions for packing that are compact but also use sustainable materials such as bio-film and paper.

Labelling: the application of labels is also crucial. In fact, the assigning and printing of unique codes require perfect integration between the software and hardware, which must work in synchrony managing an enormous amount of data. Labelling and control technology has, for that matter, evolved considerably in recent years. The printing units have gradually become smaller, while the vision and control systems have become increasingly efficient and able to analyse the packages with greater accuracy.

Sorting and shipping: precision and delicate handling of the package are required during these phases; everything must be carried out in a fluid and autonomous manner. Increasing the automation of logistics hubs is essential not only to manage the peaks of Black Friday, but also to increase the daily efficiency of the plant.

In this case, too, Sitma is able to offer a wide range of solutions, with sorting systems such as Easy Sort or Speedy Sort, bestsellers on the market, and the more recent Symphony. The latter is a modular system that combines efficiency and flexibility, and is designed specifically to meet the needs of the logistics sector, which become particularly critical on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Automation for all

Posted on by David Priestman

A UK specialist is bringing a new business model to the automation and integration sector, which could be good news for SMEs.

Until now, automation projects have largely been for the mega players only. Only the Amazons, Tescos and Wal-Marts of this world have had the heft in terms of investment, capacity, footprint and staff resource to take expensive projects on with a clear ROI goal in mind and without disrupting their massive day-to-day operations.

But now the world is changing. Customer service requirements in terms of delivery speed, accuracy and personalisation are requiring SMEs to think like the big players – and that means automation and digital transformation. The problem for smaller concerns and ecommerce start-ups embarking on such projects often lies in not having the staff bandwidth and expertise to make the jump with any confidence and without incurring damaging disruption to the core business.

This is where Big Box Group comes in. Initially a strong business as a storage and racking specialist, some five or so years ago its founder Iain Gillard began to embrace a new vision of where warehousing was going, in which scanning efficiencies, AGVs and robots and a greater automation emphasis were front and centre. He forecast that SMEs would need someone to help them through the process, to be a reliable expert partner guaranteed to get the job done – and, crucially, to be a single point of contact.

Jason Dyche, the company’s Head of Automation, is himself a veteran of the German warehousing logistics optimisation field. He bought fully into Gillard’s concept, joining Big Box Group in summer 2020, at the height of the pandemic and in the full knowledge that the need for such skills as Big Box could offer would be accelerated by the world emergency.

“What I liked about the Big Box concept was that, with our wide expertise, we could walk into almost any business and we could help them with anything, within reason,” he reveals. “It could be racking, it could be a mezzanine floor, it could be a temporary building, it could be a scanning solution.”

Does that not make them just another consultancy service, though? “Absolutely not,” he shakes his head. “We are not consultants. We don’t charge a consultancy fee. The idea is that we work in partnership, that we are trusted to get the job over the line. And for the client, the beauty is that they have one phone call to make each time, because we will do the rest for them. If the project is a small one, we know we can go back in confidence a few months later and they will want us to do another, larger job.”

Big Box Group’s automation suite of solutions has led to partnerships with AGV supplier Balyo, narrow-aisle UK forklift specialist Flexi and goods-to-person AMR provider GreyOrange. A fruitful relationship has been established with fast-growing Munich-based wearables innovator ProGlove (pictured).

“The beauty of ProGlove is that it can provide a very quick fix in terms of ROI, perhaps 3-6 months compared to other automation solutions,” explains Jason Dyche. “There’s a fast turnaround, too – orders can be ready in a matter of weeks, whereas AMR and AGV implementation can be, say, 12-18 months.”

He says the company will look at any project within the warehouse, from Goods-In to Goods-Out. With that flexibility in mind, how does he go about assessing what is right for a new client?

“I’ll start by asking, ‘What are your objectives as a business?’ Let’s be honest, the answer is usually going to be: ‘We want to increase our turnover without adding to our overheads, in fact we would prefer to reduce those overheads’. My job is to establish how to do that for them most cost-effectively and appropriately,” he says.

It means no two projects are the same. Currently he is working on a large asset-tracking project for a successful manufacturer which has grown so fast that its inventory has become haphazard; on developing a way to move butter from a pallet to a conveying system more efficiently; and on a scanning project (with ProGlove) for a major British supermarket chain.

Mercadona warehouse reaches 100% performance

Posted on by David Priestman

The ramp-up of the new automated frozen food warehouse of the Spanish food retailer Mercadona in Guadix (Granada, Spain), was carried out on time by WITRON. This is especially impressive as the construction and implementation of the project had to be executed in the midst of the most difficult phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, with all the well-known constraints and conditions.

All of this presented organisational and logistical challenges. Nevertheless, the productive ramp-up of the frozen food warehouse was successfully completed after only eight weeks and within the contractually agreed time frame.

Thanks to the efficient cooperation between the project teams of both companies, it was possible to carry out extensive operational and load tests before the productive start. As a result, the intended system performance was achieved just four weeks after the first store was supplied – and this in the middle of the summer season, with constantly growing throughput volumes of the system, which is designed for almost 50,000 cases per day.

The distribution centre in Guadix is already the sixth fully automated frozen food warehouse that WITRON has designed and implemented for Mercadona. Other sites are located in Madrid, Valencia, León, Barcelona, and Abrera. Seven COM machines are implemented over an area of approx. 18,000 sq m. Furthermore, an automated high bay warehouse with 7,000 pallet locations as well as a tray AS/RS with 62,000 locations are located in front of the COMs.

In addition, pallets from a bread factory in an adjacent building can be stored directly in the automatic pallet warehouse via conveyor network.

The new system currently supplies more than 170 Mercadona stores in Andalusia. In total, almost 950 Mercadona stores already receive their frozen goods through fully automated WITRON solutions. This represents more than 60% of the total stores of the leading Spanish food retailer. Since the first automated Mercadona logistics centre in Madrid was put into productive use more than 15 years ago, the OPM technology has significantly improved workstation ergonomics in the distribution centres – as well as efficiency and cost effectiveness in all logistics processes.

WITRON’s OPM technology is considered the most successful fully automated case order picking system worldwide in food retail logistics. WITRON solutions supply more than 100 million people daily with food and many important everyday necessities via 35,000+ stores or online.

Labour crisis to extend beyond Christmas

Posted on by Keith McKinley

As labour shortages across the supply chain hit the front pages in the UK, the cry goes up from the more excitable elements of the media to ‘save Christmas’. Unfortunately, as businesses and politicians are beginning to realise, the skills and labour crisis is of long standing and won’t be properly resolved in three months by any number of quick fixes. By Jo Bradley (pictured), Business Development Manager, Sparck Technologies (formerly Packaging by Quadient).

If the Prime Minister is right in his aspiration for a high skill, high wage, high productivity economy, that must require business to close the gap on our competitors in the application of automation – as the Chancellor has recognised by supersizing Capital Allowances.

Nowhere is this more true than in the fulfilment and distribution operations of e-commerce, which now represents over a quarter of retail activity and is being afflicted by shortages not only of drivers but of pickers and packers as well. Judicious application of automation to packing stations is an essential element in resolving the labour crisis, not just in the warehouse, but on the road.

No one would claim that packing goods into cardboard boxes is a highly skilled career, but nor is it straightforward. The task is physical, repetitive, boring and is usually conducted under considerable pressure to achieve the required throughput. What’s more, it is often poorly paid and involves working unsocial hours at hard to reach locations.

Unsurprisingly, staff retention for such tasks as packing is low and it can take some time for new hires to get up to speed with the complexities. Meanwhile, the resulting package is the retailer’s principal touch-point with the customer. A shoddily-assembled and sealed box, perhaps over-sized and mostly containing redundant or ineffective void fill, can really irritate consumers and doesn’t encourage repeat business.

Packing has its complexities. The packer has to assess a pile of assorted goods of differing shapes and sizes and select an appropriate box pre-form from a limited range of shapes and sizes. Guess too small and you have to start again, and throughput takes a hit. Pick a safe over-size, and the resulting package is largely composed of polystyrene, bubble wrap, crumpled paper or even other, smaller, cartons.

The box has to be erected, filled (including any void-fill), sealed neatly and effectively, and labelled accurately and securely, all at speed. This sequence of operations is an obvious candidate for automation but, even in distribution centres that have made significant investment in automating storage and retrieval, packing is often still a largely manual process.

Probably, this is because the high variability of boxes and of contents, and the need to make frequent judgement calls, makes the operation seem too complex for automation. But this isn’t the case.

Automated packaging solution

CVP Automated Packaging Solutions from Sparck Technologies – the new name for Packaging by Quadient – create ‘right-size’ boxes in seconds by scanning and measuring the goods, whether they be single or multi-item orders, cutting to size and erecting the box, sealing, weighing, and labelling automatically.

With CVP Impack, one or two operators can pack up to 500 parcels an hour; with the CVP Everest, two operators can pack 1,100 an hour. On average this replaces up to 20 manual packing stations, which in tight times for staffing means not just savings on packer and supervisor wages, but recruitment, training and HR costs too.

The labour benefits of automated packing can be felt not just in the distribution centre but out on the road as well. Less wasteful, more compact packages mean a higher density of saleable goods, rather than fresh air, on the vehicle, be this a 44-tonner on a trunk route or, more acutely, the small vehicles that are commonly used on last mile and urban delivery.

Ideally, a vehicle on a delivery round would leave the depot with all the packages to be delivered in a full shift. But very often this isn’t possible, and the driver has to make several trips back to ‘restock’. That is a lot of empty running, creating unnecessary congestion and emissions. It works against efficient delivery routing, it means that a significant part of the driver and vehicle day is unproductive and, in those operations where staff are paid per delivery a significant part of their day is effectively unpaid, which doesn’t encourage retention of conscientious staff.

Right-sizing the boxes through automated packaging systems can achieve significant gains in labour and vehicle utilisation – reducing the volume of a given quantity of goods by around 50% on average or, potentially, doubling the productivity of the delivery driver.

Sparck Technologies’ packaging solutions can make a real contribution to resolving the labour availability problem now and in the longer term. But it isn’t just a ‘defensive’ investment. Cardboard usage is reduced by around 30% and if external carriers are being used, freight charges can be cut by a third, as most carriers charge at least partially on volume. And the brand benefits inestimably as consumers appreciate a well-constructed, right-sized package reflecting a company that cares about resource usage and environmental impact.

Drive electronics for each application case

Posted on by David Priestman

For more than 30 years, Nord Drivesystems has been developing and producing electronic drive technology and is one of the pioneers in innovative inverter technology. The portfolio includes motor starters and frequency inverters of up to 22kW in decentralised designs and up to 160kW for the control cabinet – characterised by scalable functions, high precision regulation, easy installation and operation. Different power classes, mounting options and communication modules ensure integration into all control architectures.

Whether a control cabinet installation or a decentralised version for use in the field – with its NordAC product family, Nord Drivesystems offers electronic drive technology for almost every application. The frequency inverters and motor starters cover a wide power range of up to 160kW and impress with high performance and safety.

A special feature is the large range of modular products for decentralised drive electronics. Whether mounted on the motor or close to the motor: With power ratings up to 22kW and their large range of functions, Nord decentralised drives are used in many applications worldwide – from the food industry to intralogistics through to bulk goods handling.

Scalable functions for each drive application

All Nord inverters are scalable with regard to function and configuration, and can be flexibly adjusted to any application. They are quick to install, easy to operate and compatible with all common bus systems and controls. Useful features like the PLC functionality for drive-integrated functions, an energy-saving function for partial load operation, the POSICON positioning control, integrated brake choppers for 4-quadrant operation and functional safety with STO and SS1 ensure high functional use.

The inverters perform open- loop or closed-loop, and are designed for operation with asynchronous and synchronous motors. The precise current vector control ensures optimal torque in a wide variety of load and speed situations. The consistency of the entire NordAC product family ensures a comparable function range, uniform operation, and common options for all Nord frequency inverters.

Condition monitoring for predictive maintenance

Nord inverters have condition monitoring solutions for predictive maintenance systems and are well equipped for use in IIoT and Industry 4.0. The integrated PLC can process data from connected sensors and actuators, initiate control sequences and communicate with other system components.

The periodic or continuous recording of drive and status data allows for an early detection and avoidance of impermissible operating states. Unscheduled downtimes can be significantly reduced and status-oriented maintenance (predictive maintenance) replaces time-based maintenance. Machinery and plant downtimes can be scheduled.

Own electronics production in Aurich

The frequency inverters and motor starters are manufactured in Aurich (East Friesland), Lower Saxony. Nord has been operating its own electronics production in Aurich since 1984, producing more than 100,000 units per year in a manufacturing area of 5,000 sq m – from series production devices via individually configurable components through to one-off special build items. The drive specialist develops all solutions together with customers and perfectly matches them to the individual requirements.

GEODIS commits to Geek+ AMR fleet

Posted on by David Priestman

GEODIS has announced the deployment of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) from Geek+, a global technology company specialised in smart logistics through advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), at its Yuen Long Warehouse Distribution Centre (YLDC) in Hong Kong, SAR China.

The YLDC will be provided with an exclusive AMR operating area with QR coding to guide automated operations. The smart facility underlines GEODIS’ digital-first outlook to future operations.

Onno Boots, Regional President & CEO, Asia Pacific, said: “Our investments in this AI-driven automation system brings substantial value to GEODIS’ eCommerce and retail customers by addressing some of the key challenges they face today. These solutions not only bring long-term cost-savings, operational efficiencies, and safety, but also enable us to maintain high-quality control standards while providing customers greater speed and flexibility of movement of goods.”

GEODIS’ initial project AMR deployment features customised storage racks and shelves that do not require aisles in between while parked. This high-density storage buffer allows GEODIS to maximise its storage capacity for improved customer fulfilment processes. Furthermore, the Geek+ robots will be used for locating, tracking, and moving inventory through “Goods-to-Person Picking” solutions. This method allows orders to be delivered directly to pick and pack stations, eliminating any movement time needed by operators to search for items.

In addition to improved real estate utilisation, AMR adoption minimises manual labour and reduces the risk of human error—improving picking accuracy and reducing inventory count errors. The use of AMR will also mitigate some of the challenges brought on by COVID-19, such as social distancing protocols in warehouses.

“Today’s announcement demonstrates GEODIS’ continued commitment to innovation and its momentum in addressing the increasingly complex production and challenges in the Hong Kong Contract Logistics (HKCL) landscape in the last two years,” Chris Cahill, Managing Director, North Asia Sub-Region said. “In the long run, digital solutions and technologies like robotics and AI give us more data and insights so we can continue to finesse our operations to fulfil the needs of our customers.”

“The announcement reveals Geek+‘s determination to support companies worldwide with technologies that can streamline operations, transforming the global supply chain to address increasingly complex logistics challenges,” added Lit Fung, VP and Managing Director of Geek+ APAC, UK and Americas. “We will continue help GEODIS better manage changes in demand, quickly scale in line with business growth, and provide customers with better products and service capabilities.”

The Geek+ solution advances GEODIS‘ goal of boosting its smart logistics portfolio and provides a competitive edge to meet the rising demands for agility and accuracy amidst soaring demand in the eCommerce, retail and FMCG segments. GEODIS has around 250 autonomous mobile robots worldwide.

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