ASOS is to install pocket sorter technology at its Berlin distribution centre following its successful introduction in the company’s UK distribution centre in Barnsley.
The solution includes Knapp’s OSR Shuttle store which allows for the flexibility of a frequently changing article range and picking at the Pick-it-Easy workstations. The transport pockets are combined with a hanging goods system.
The pocket sorter system uses a unique algorithm to sort randomly picked items into an exact sequence. Flat-packed and hanging goods are consolidated at one of 200 packing stations in the precise sequence needed for dispatch.
“At the pack stations, we only provide the items that belong to one individual customer order for picking from the pockets,” said Heimo Robosch, executive vice president of KNAPP AG. “The next order then arrives once the previous pack order has been completed. The streamlining of all processes results in a reduction in costs as well as an optimised transit time, both crucial to e-commerce businesses,” he said.
Dürkopp Fördertechnik, the Knapp subsidiary which engineered the systems, originally launched the pocket sorter solution into ASOS’s UK DC in 2014, initially with three modules. This increased to four in 2016 and to five more recently which has increased the overall performance to 30,000 items per hour. The system will be further expanded by the addition of a dynamic buffer this year to allow the fully automatic storage and retrieval of about 80,000 single items.
Image credit: Knapp
