OmniStore concept launched at TGW food retail summit

More than 50 leading international food retailing experts visited TGW Evolution Park on 10-11 October. The event, which showcased the current and future challenges of automation, took place at TGW’s Helix, a large interactive showroom.

Digitisation and robotics were among the main topics featured. In addition, best practice examples from successful TGW projects were highlighted, as were store solutions and a new concept for picking fruit and vegetables.

Eleven international presenters covered a broad spectrum of topics. Renowned innovation researcher, Peter Fisk, took attendees on a trip into the future of grocery retail. Michael Feindt, a specialist in artificial intelligence, focused on big data technology and predictive analytics, while discussing the possible uses of digitisation.

TGW competences were featured, among other things, based on the example of the logistics centre designed by TGW for COOP in the Swiss city of Schafisheim.

In the Coop logistics centre, the chilled goods area and refrigerated goods are picked in a fully automatic system – and at extremely high speed. The empty truss centre and the logistics bakery include a fully automatic sorting system for containers, a fully automatic carton palletising system for bakery products, and a buffer for roll containers and pallets. The high level of automation is this project’s most outstanding hallmark.

Also, TGW and shopfitting firm Umdasch introduced a novel concept called OmniStore that combines online shopping with stationary trading which is said to offer ‘tangible added value to retailers as well as supermarket customers’.

With the OmniStore concept, the supermarket is divided into a store and a storage area. In the store area you can find products that provide you with a shopping experience. Everything else is picked in the warehouse area: Here, online orders or supermarket purchase items are brought to the check-out area where customers can pick up their orders 24/7.

Robotics

One of the main purposes of the event was to provide a look at the possibilities that robotics are opening up in the field of automation. In addition to applications for mixed palletising, Rovolution was showcased as TGW’s innovative solution for automatic single-piece picking by robot. The system is said to be powerful, fast, and extremely flexible.

TGW says AI plays a decisive role in creating intelligent machines. They are flexible and powerful; they can automatically correct unexpected events and they can gather experience. With Rovolution, TGW is providing a solution for rising automation requirements in single-piece picking. Rovolution is an innovative system for fully automatic single-piece picking by robots.

“TGW stands for holistic solutions. TGW has grown from being the leading mechatronics supplier to having established itself on the core markets as a future-oriented systems provider – and the Grocery Expert Days are clearly underscoring this,” says Christoph Wolkerstorfer, CSO of the TGW Logistics Group.