Huge omni-channel food DC planned

Axfood intends the DC near Stockholm, Sweden to be open by the end of 2023. The warehouse will handle picking and deliveries to Axfood’s stores as well as to online customers. The temperature zones range from 25 deg C to -26 dec C. The system is designed for a daily pick capacity of approx. 1.6 million pick units. The order value amounts to 240 million Euros.

On a peak day, the Case Picking Systems OPM (Order Picking Machinery) and CPS (Car Picking System) as well as the Piece Picking Systems AIO (All-In-One Order Fulfillment), DPS (Dynamic Picking System), and OPS (Order Picking System) pick almost 1.6 million units. 

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Depending on the respective distribution channel, the goods are delivered using a wide variety of different load carriers: store-friendly packed pallets and roll containers, deep-freeze containers, totes, delivery boxes, environmentally friendly paper bags. Algorithms for every store or online order ensure an efficient consolidation from different product and temperature zones as well as a space-saving stacking onto or into the optimal shipping container.  

Shipping buffer

The fully automated shipping buffer plays a decisive role in the closely linked and highly integrated Axfood DC. On the one hand, it significantly reduces the amount of required space and the number of staff in the dispatch area. On the other hand, the shipping buffer intelligently connects and decouples order picking with the shipping area in terms of “excellence operation”. Thus, all shipping units are made available for loading in the dispatch area by means of stacker cranes and heavy-duty lanes – “just in time” sorted by routes and stores, in the optimal trailer loading sequence, and taking into account storage space utilisation. With the dynamic storage of the picked customer orders in the shipping buffer, picking can continue even in highly dynamic phases, where no loading takes place, without the dispatch zone being overfilled and vice versa: loading is possible even if there is no order picking.

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The provision of eCommerce orders for shipping was also elegantly solved. Here, the totes are sorted and stacked fully automatically by a route sequence buffer immediately after picking so that the employee in the dispatch area can load them into the respective trailer according to the tour and sequence. 

End-to-end offering

Today, it is no longer sufficient for only the logistics centre to be economical, efficient, and flexible. The project must be successful in an “end-to-end” way. Due to the complexity of the tasks – supply of all distribution channels from one logistics centre, extremely dynamic business processes, very high throughput both in the store and digital business – an integrated supply chain intelligence is required that optimally integrates the DC into Axfood’s entire logistics network – internally and externally – as well as vertically and horizontally.