Automated carton warehouse for eComm

A STEADY increase in incoming orders and a modified consignment structure meant that Betzold needed to take action. The concept consists of four aisles, 80,000 storage locations, automated in- and outgoing goods processes, integration of a warehouse control system (WCS) and conveyor technology to connect to inventory logistics. The system was launched in May 2025 and is capable of handling 520 double cycles per hour.

Only cartons that need to be processed manually due to their size or weight are ejected – the rest can be put into storage automatically.

All mail-order cartons are automatically labelled in machine-readable form and captured in real time by OCR vision technology with AI-supported error correction.

A camera sensor system recognises the many variations in label design and automatically converts any discrepancies to the required standard.

Conveyor technology then guides the cartons directly to storage in the automated carton warehouse or to the container filling station, which automatically supplies the neighbouring shuttle warehouse.

The remaining items are initially stored on pallets in the reserve HBW. As soon as items in the automatic carton warehouse need to be restocked, replenishment is requested from the reserve HBW. The WCS is used to manage the material flow, including storage location selection.

For goods retrieval, the WMS transfers the order to the WCS, which summarises individual orders in batches and forwards the required target coordinates to the storage and retrieval machines, prioritising them accordingly and thereby achieving the highest possible level of workload fulfillment.