Initial situation and customer requirements
- The company stores, packs and dispatches over 70,000 products for its e-commerce customers in the fields of fashion, food, interior design and cosmetics.
- Depending on the time of year, between 2,000 and 6,000 orders are processed every day. The service provider sends finished products to the end customer, packs orders and assembles products individually according to the customer’s requirements.
- E-commerce business is growing strongly, 50% to 60% a year, but significant fluctuation makes for difficult planning and 50% of sales are achieved in the 4th quarter.
- They needed a solution that would reduce picking travel time and be able to react quickly to changes. To reduce the error rate and optimise processes, the flow of material needed to be automated. Previously, products were placed in containers and moved by employees on trolleys.
The BITO Solution
Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) with stations
» The system of LEO Locative transporters and stations works without the need for IT or a wireless network. The system is controlled and guided by an optical track and instruction markers glued to the floor.
Plug and play
» The system of transporters and stations can be easily installed and used straightaway. The optical track can be easily re-directed and different markers added.
Customer application
- Five LEO Locative transporters travel through the warehouse to pick up the goods from six stations and transport the goods to the assembly or despatch stations.
- Six destinations can be controlled with a tablet, while stops along the route and destinations are determined by appropriate markers on the ground.
- Currently, LEO Locative usage is 80% for shipping and 20% for goods storage, with plans to further increase the use for storage.
- The packaging and assembly of their products is particularly complex and the LEO transporters smooth out the flow of material involved in the processes.
Customer benefits
- Reduced walking time for employees through a more ergonomically laid out workplace
- Automated flow of material
- A flexible, adaptable and scalable solution
- Simplified material flows, enabling productivity is maintained despite a fluctuating business environment
- No need for high IT investment, as an inexpensive tablet is all that is required for target control
This is what our customer says
“As a service partner in the field of fulfillment for online trading, we are operating in a very dynamic market with high growth rates in which we are growing at an above average rate. It is important for our customers that we can react very, very flexibly with their products. True to our motto "Better to build tents than castles", we cannot and do not want to automate warehouse technology, but we do automate in the area of material flow. The LEO Locative system convinced us here because it offers the necessary flexibility and scalability that are important for us and our customers. A simple plug-and-play application in the truest sense of the word, which saves us many kilometres of mileage and enables a high level of profitability to be achieved with an amortization rate of well under half a year."
Frank Hammermeister, Managing Director
