Geekplus and Körber autonomous mobile robots boost e-commerce warehouse operations at Hawesko Group

Geekplus has teamed with Körber to deploy more than 20 autonomous mobile robots for the wine distributor Hawesko Group.

The project is focused on the company's Tornech, Germany, facility, where in-house logistics service provider IWL handles 20 million bottles of wine and champagne annually.

Geekplus robots now operate 330 shelves across an expanded 6,000 square metre area.

"Geekplus is proud to continue our longstanding partnership with Körber, which has now grown to more than 3,000 robots deployed in 11 countries," says Geekplus' Simon Houghton.

"We work together to create unique solutions for customers like the Hawesko Group, helping them solve the challenges they currently face while enabling them to easily scale up their level of automation to meet future demands."

Behind the scenes, all operational warehouse processes converge on Körber's digital logistics platform.

The WMS acts as an operational hub, while the subdivided Unified Control System (UCS) optimises the control of the automated technology portfolio and creates extended communication interfaces to the robotics application.

Because of this, pick performance in the expanded area has more than doubled.

"Given the growth in online retail, the importance of efficient processes to support e-commerce fulfilment has increased significantly. High-performing and resource efficient solutions are required to address increasing customer demands and seasonal fluctuations," says Michael Brandl, Executive Vice President Software EMEA at Körber Business Area Supply Chain.

"The new solution accomplished this for the Hawesko Group through an integrated combination of WMS, AMR technology and UCS."

"Compared to the use of conventional automation solutions, the expansion in Tornesch proved to be the most economically effective solution, creating not only additional storage capacity but also the necessary freedom for future expansion," says Frederick Paulsen, Project Manager Information Logistics at IWL.

"Capacities for up to 100 additional racks, which corresponds to approximately 40,000 additional article items, are possible in the future in the existing space."