Flaschenpost is underpinning its e-food ambitions and pushing ahead with automation at a further warehouse location. This will enable the delivery service to deliver orders faster and become more productive, reports the Lebensmittelzeitung.
- 01/17/2024
- Article
- Machinery Change
- Innovative Processes
E-food Delivery Service Flaschenpost Pushes Ahead with Automation
The online retailer Flaschenpost has launched a pilot project for automation and equipped two warehouses with Autostore systems.
The beverage and e-food delivery service is increasingly relying on robots at its warehouse locations: After a fulfillment center with an automated system has already been in operation in Langenfeld near Düsseldorf since August 2023, a second one has been running at the Cologne site since the end of November. “The logistics support provided by Autostore helps us to meet the increasing demand in the future despite limited storage space and enables an overall increase in productivity,” says Co-CEO Niklas Plath. The retailer has implemented both storage systems in collaboration with intralogistics service provider Hörmann. Autostore is an automated storage system that allows goods to be stacked on top of each other in a modular grid structure and stored and picked with the help of robots.
Chilled and Dry Goods Together
Flaschenpost claims to be the first food retailer to combine a system for chilled goods (2 degrees Celsius) with one for non-chilled goods in a single unit. The items from both temperature zones are stored and retrieved fully automatically in containers in the Autostore grid system and brought together in a picking tunnel. There, the employees pick both the chilled and dry goods at an ergonomic height at a goods-to-person picking station and load them for delivery. Thanks to the technical support, the picking performance can be increased more than threefold and the preparation time for orders can be reduced to 120 minutes.
Even More Performance Thanks to Robots
The systems at both sites are comparable in size: in Langenfeld, the articles are stored in 19,000 containers and 43 robots are in use, while in Cologne, according to the company, there are 13,600 containers and 33 robots. Currently, more than 2,000 robot movements per hour can be carried out at Peak. Capacity can be increased at any time by adding more robots.
Other E-food Providers
Other e-food suppliers also rely on a storage system by Autostore. Muesli supplier Knuspr, for example, uses the provider’s shuttle solution in its warehouses in Garching, Bischofsheim, and Vienna. Albert Heijn also recently put such a system into operation in Barendrecht. Picnic, on the other hand, relies on technology supplier TGW and is currently building a highly automated picking center in Oberhausen.