Our customer
From startup in the publishing and online distribution of graffiti supplies and books, Publikat Verlags- und Handels GmbH Co. KG., a young eCommerce company based in Großostheim, has become Germany's second largest adidas online retailer. Apart from the graffiti requirement, sneakers and fashion articles (this area is by far the strongest in terms of sales) and items related to the outdoor needs of various well-known brands are sold online. Hundreds of thousands of customers are now being supplied directly from Germany, France and the Netherlands, as well as throughout Europe and worldwide, directly from the various online publisher shops.
Customer requirements
- The steady, rapid growth of the eCommerce company required a multiple of existing storage capacity. The storage capacity at the former location was exhausted beyond measure. Publikat moved to new storage rooms.
- The online retailer offers its mainly young customers a diverse and wide range of sneakers, fashion and outdoor needs. The storage rooms must be set up accordingly.
- Decisive to the eCommerce company is that the storage facility is a solid system that can handle the required storage capacity.
- The new warehouse equipment must above all offer the online mail order company the greatest possible degree of flexibility in order to be able to respond quickly and with little effort to the expected, steady growth of the company.
- The orders should always be deliverable promptly, therefore a permanently high delivery availability has to be guaranteed. There are about 100,000 different items in stock, every day – depending on the season – between 3,000 and 5,000 orders shipped.
- Very tight time factor: For the move to the new storage rooms, the first hall had to be set up before the start of the Christmas business. From the award of the contract to the move, only just under three months were available.
- The installation of the second hall should take place on the fly, without disrupting and restricting operations.
- Future future expansion requests of the eCommerce company and related conversion and installation measures in the warehouses must be very flexible and quickly realizable in a short period of time without affecting the operating procedures.
The BITO Solution
- Two 3-storey BITO multi-tier facilities were installed in the storage rooms at the new Publikat location.
- The multi-tier facilities each consist of two blocks connected by a central corridor 2.5 m wide.
- The aisle forms the main artery of the plant, here the strongest operation for goods receipt and goods exit takes place. The aisle width was designed so that two hand pallet trucks can be easily pushed past each other.
- High stability is provided by the central aisle through a construction based on BITO pallet rack components.
- The merchandise of the online retailer is stored in BITO shelving units with shelves of different depths – 30 cm in depth, so that two shoe boxes can fit one behind the other – or 60 cm in depth to store two cartons with clothing.
On-site application
- Well structured system according to the customer's requirements: In principle, at Publikat the goods are received in three zones, in which the articles are stored according to variety and priority: There is a warehouse for textiles, a warehouse for shoes and moreover warehouses in which palletised goods are stored. Here the goods are stored in BITO shelving.
- Each storage zone is designed to be so flexible and offers so much space that the eCommerce company can react as quickly and easily as possible to customer requirements for more variety of items and that processing an increasing order volume is possible in every area of the system in the future.
- In the halls without the multi-tier layout of the site, products are stored on single tier shelving or on pallets and picked from these.
- Orders are picked from Monday to Saturday inclusive in one-shift operation. Order picking is completely paperless PDA-supported and at all levels of the plant.
- All three tiers of the system are equipped with shelving, each tier with seven shelves.
- Each shelf level can be serviced from both sides.
- The walkways between the rows of racks provide sufficient space for the ergonomic placement and picking of the boxes and the goods, the employees can move freely.
- Best selling items are picked directly from the pallet to keep picking paths short.
Customer benefits
- The existing hall height allowed the installation of three-tier facilities. The volume of the existing and the new logistics building can now be fully utilised.
- This will increase the storage capacities, and at the same time, it will be possible to react quickly and flexibly to the current and expected future growth in order volumes.
- The e-commerce company gains a total of more than 6,000 square meters of storage space with the same footprint.
- Manual equipment such as shelving offers the highest level of flexibility – the online retailer can easily respond to permanent seasonal fluctuations, peak periods, increased variety of items and general order growth.
- BITO Boltless shelving can be easily changed and rebuilt as required, and the individual shelves can be easily stored away – it is always possible to react quickly and easily to new working conditions.
- The shelves have no sharp corners and edges, which is particularly important for the storage of delicate materials such as clothing and textiles.
- By adherence to the tight schedule: Short coordination channels in close cooperation with the team from Publikat, the BITO project team in Meisenheim and the on-site assembly teams made it possible to quickly start production of the multi-tier system after a short planning phase, and then carry out assembly.
What our customers say
The plant has been planned from the beginning in close cooperation with the BITO team. They took up our ideas and suggestions, supported them and realized the best solution for us. All requirements were met without any problems. We were aware that the time frame that we gave to BITO as a premise was very small and that the timing was more than sporty. We are pleased that this project and the furnishing of the warehouses at our new location have again been carried out goal-oriented. Everything was perfect and went really well.
Florian Herr,
Operations Manager at Publikat
