Leading online retailer in the Netherlands, Wehkamp, is operating a highly automated distribution centre that enables it to have customer orders ready for shipment within 30 minutes of receipt.
Featuring automated logistics systems from KNAPP, the facility in Zwolle – which was the largest automated e-commerce DC in the world when it was opened by King Willem-Alexander in 2015 – was recently extended to meet growth forecasts.
Originally founded in 1952 as a mail order business, Wehkamp began selling online in 1995, becoming a pureplay retailer in 2008. The company has ranges in fashion, shoes, home & gardening, electronics, sports & leisure, beauty and baby, with an article range of more than 400,000 items. Currently, its website attracts more than 500,000 visitors each day and Wehkamp distributes around 11 million packages to its 2.7 million customers every year. Wehkamp’s delivery promise is that orders placed by 11:59 pm will be delivered the next day.
Brand-new DC
As the business grew, its original logistics centre in Dedemsvaart became too small to cope and renting additional warehouse space proved unsatisfactory. Wehkamp therefore decided to build a new DC in Zwolle, which was designed with sustainability in mind.
Expansion
Scalable design of the original system meant that its recent expansion was relatively simple and was able to take place during ongoing operation. The double-deep OSR Shuttle™ storage system was expanded by three extra rack line systems to make a total of 21. With 26 levels, its 546 shuttles serve a total of 556,000 storage locations. Two cross-belt sorters connect the storage area with the picking area.
Explained Sander Bolmer, Warehousing & Distribution Director for wehkamp.nl, “Our customers don’t know what goes on behind the scenes in our logistics centre. What they expect, however, is that we keep our promises. The extremely high reliability, availability and performance of the system ensure that we can.”
Goods-to-person picking
Along with increasing the performance of the shuttle system, the extension included four additional goods-to-person workstations from KNAPP’s Pick-it-Easy series, bringing the total number of pick stations to 28. These are located on two levels and are supplied with goods from the OSR Shuttle™.
Explained Sander Bolmer, “Our facility is designed according to the goods-to-person principle, which is the biggest difference compared to traditional fulfilment centres. When a customer places an order, the order is allocated to one of our 28 Pick-it-Easy workstations. The OSR Shuttle™ then automatically delivers the right items to the workstations. Our employees can work on 6 customer orders simultaneously, which allows us to pick up to 12,300 items per hour.”
The ergonomically designed picking stations feature KNAPP’s easyUse interface to facilitate efficient fulfilment with the minimum number of errors. For multi-line orders, the appropriate cartons are supplied to the target bay of the picking station. Single item orders are gathered in a ‘super-tote’ for fast picking and are separated and packed later. This approach optimises order lead time, while also creating an ideal workload balance across all the picking stations during peak periods.
Automated packing lines
Once picking is complete, orders move to the packing lines, where processes are also mostly automated. There is a small manual area for value-added services, where gift wrapping and other tasks can be performed at up to 20 workstations on peak days.
A machine shortens the height of shipping cartons to suit their contents and lids them. This secures the goods in the carton and minimises the transport of air to enhance space utilisation in delivery vehicles and ultimately reduce CO2 emissions. Parcels are sorted for their various destinations at a total of 140 sortation ramps.
The warehouse also features 16 decanting stations and three automatic carton erectors at goods-in. KNAPP’s high-speed Streamline conveyor system transports containers throughout the entire warehouse and KNAPP’s KiSoft software controls and optimises all the processes.
Returns
With large apparel ranges, Wehkamp has to handle a significant number of returns – up to 40 per cent of items in this category. In the returns area, articles are checked for quality and either discarded or re-packed for storage at 96 workstations.
Partnership
In selecting a company to deliver the intralogistics automation that it required, Wehkamp was mindful of the need for a spirit of partnership. “We were searching for a good partner to work with over the long-term, not for just a supplier,” said Sander Bolmer.
“KNAPP took our design specifications and worked out a solution with which we were convinced that we would be able to achieve our goals. Another determining factor was that KNAPP already had considerable experience in the retail sector and had already implemented similar solutions.”
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