AutoStore automation has enabled larger flexibility and quicker upscaling alternatives for Arvato shoppers within the UK. Logistics Enterprise visited the 3PL’s Hams Corridor website, the place a brand new extension to the present AutoStore has dramatically elevated fulfilment charges for a number of shoppers.
If we are able to agree that the case for automation in logistics is confirmed – quicker execution, higher reliability, optimised allocation of human useful resource, improved value and time efficiencies – then the dialogue strikes to the obtainable automation decisions. What kind of automation is essentially the most acceptable for what you are promoting’s future necessities?
Particularly, what are the components that flip good automation into excellent automation? For David Bailey, Director Shopper Merchandise Arvato within the UK, the perfect automation comfortably delivers flexibility, scale and ease of operation.
“It’s about choosing the right instrument for the precise job, and scaling in the easiest way to swimsuit the client’s wants and needs,” he says. “And for us, AutoStore delivers these wants extraordinarily successfully.”
Partnership belief and dedication
Arvato is the bold German-founded omnichannel logistics supplier with a fast-growing world operation and notably excessive momentum within the UK, the place present focus is on vogue, tech and healthcare prospects. David Bailey is talking on the firm’s spectacular – and immaculate – state-of-the-art website at Ham Halls, Birmingham, the place it has simply opened an extension to its present AutoStore system, carried out in 2023. This provides to the 15 AutoStore techniques already in place at Arvato websites in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and the USA.
As a technology-focused 3PL, Arvato’s belief and dedication to AutoStore is a notable endorsement for the Norwegian-founded world chief in clever order fulfilment options. The latter’s acknowledged imaginative and prescient is easy to say however tougher to realize: “To retailer and transfer issues for everybody, in every single place.” They appear to be succeeding: AutoStore order orchestration and fulfilment techniques at the moment are established at over 1,850 websites in over 60 international locations.
What’s the key?
“The buyer merchandise market in logistics is about reacting shortly to fast-changing wants,” explains Bailey. “If, as an example, a buyer desires to resize, AutoStore offers us a wealth of choices by which to fulfill these wants – tote dimension, variety of bots, optimisation of the grid. Shopper logistics is about discovering the precise instrument and the precise design for the job you’re seeking to do. And in the event you mission handle it properly, the method is extraordinarily easy. Our robust and long-established relationship with AutoStore and their integrator companions reminiscent of Kardex, who constructed and prolonged the system at Hams Corridor, permits that smoothness for us.”
As if to function a neat instance of his level, Hams Corridor – which is a multi-client website – has lately onboarded a brand new worldwide retailer, a number one model in technical athletic attire requiring precisely these versatile, fast-paced operations. “The scalability choices with AutoStore make it a lot simpler for us,” agrees Steven Pitt, Head of Operations. “As soon as the infrastructure is in place, the chance for purchasers with an aggressive progress cycle may be very robust.”
Superfast implementation
Therefore the AutoStore extension, accomplished in simply over three months, the quickest implementation in Arvato’s historical past and a testomony to the connection between consumer, OEM and integrator. The upgraded system now helps 87,600 bins (from 65,000) and helps practically 1.2 million saved items in a 16-row deep grid. Peak season selecting charges high 26,000 per day, a 53% enhance on handbook selecting options. Choosing knowledge at random from his laptop computer, Matt Harling, Kardex Gross sales Supervisor UK and Eire reveals that 54,000 bin displays have been made on December ninth, 2025, with a complete of over three million bin displays within the earlier 90 days log. “Keep in mind that every tote comprises a couple of merchandise, too,” he factors out.
It’s price taking a second to visualise the human useful resource and warehouse footprint that will be required to aim to match these numbers in a completely handbook operation, and to replicate how far automation has are available in delivering lightning-fast service for purchasers and shoppers.
Ought to we assume that AutoStore is at all times offered to shoppers as Arvato’s automation system of alternative? “Completely not,” says Bailey. “We gained’t essentially talk about particular techniques with shoppers, it’s about what their wants are and the way we are going to work collectively to ship them, what’s proper for his or her wants after which what’s the easiest way to ship on that – it positively gained’t be imposed by us. We now have a wonderful resolution design course of. We discover what the information tells us and the place it’s main us. So, let’s say we’re taking a look at an AutoStore; it’s additionally doubtless we’ll be contemplating an open-rack shuttle system, an AMR, a shelving system, possibly. However AutoStore may be very efficient by way of value, flexibility, and pace.”
The Arvato mission crew works with each AutoStore and its integration associate, on this case, Kardex (different AutoStore companions within the UK embody Swisslog, Factor Logic and StrongPoint). The mixing associate is greatest positioned to supply and ship these components of the automation package deal required by the client above and past storing and shifting, reminiscent of auto-bagging and RFID techniques.
The method is fast, partly as a result of the companions know one another so properly. “The times of heavy automation and lengthy implementation, with prolonged lead occasions earlier than you even hit the location are gone with AutoStore,” says Morgan McNee, Kardex Venture Supervisor. “We’ve gone from level of order to go-live in months.”
The Hams Corridor operation has RFID in place at a number of factors within the course of, together with inbound and packing. As a bonded warehouse, it must fulfill UK authorities and customs rules in addition to consumer wants. As well as, it supplies quicker companies for purchasers along with additional layers of inventory integrity affirmation – Steven Pitt describes how a latest inventory depend enabled by the RFID tunnel processed 500,000 items for a buyer in 48 hours.
Worth-added sizzle
The extras at Hams Corridor add the sizzle. “Logistics is about including worth – anybody can decide and pack,” says Bailey. Worth-added companies supplied on the multi-client service embody handbook selecting for smaller prospects, a complete returns operation together with full test of products returned, and an Alterations part the place particular person clothes items ordered on-line could also be altered by professionals to particular person shopper specs.
In a territory such because the UK, the place agile, fluid retailing is a watchword and shopper expectations on e-commerce supply occasions are extra demanding than elsewhere in Europe, choosing the precise automation is significant to efficient aggressive benefit.
Climate patterns, shopping for habits, buyer behaviours – techniques intelligence permits assured planning and decision-making for 3PLs, all in shut partnership with the client. Bailey summarises: “Companies that transfer are people who pivot and act with the market – and even forward of it.”
