THE WAREHOUSE handles large volumes of apparel arriving from Asia in cartons, which must be buffer stored before being decanted and picked. New seasonal collections arrive many weeks before outbound deliveries begin, and stock must last a season of up to six months.

“Today, we manage this by buffer-storing the cartons on pallets in pallet racking and replenishing or decanting them into the system as goods are shipped. This requires extensive manual buffer handling,” said Patrik Johnfors, head of solution design & implementation at Nowaste Logistics.

With AutoCase, cartons can instead go straight into the AutoStore grid on receipt and later be retrieved as full cases for shipment or routed to a picking station for individual order fulfilment.

“AutoCase is a solution that is as simple as it is ingenious,” said Johnfors, adding that it eliminates time-consuming manual work while increasing storage density.

Giulia Colombi, CEO EMEA at Swisslog, said the AutoCase port “expands the range of applications that can be automated with AutoStore technology”.

The solution was installed during the summer and will now be tested with various carton types and sizes before going into full operation.

For more information, visit www.swisslog.com