Two of the three nominations for the Logistica Award consist of ingenious solutions for the time-consuming, labour-intensive packaging process in warehouses. These innovations mark a new phase in warehouse design. After years of focusing mainly on the order picking process in e-commerce warehouses, it is now high time to tackle the packaging process.
That all attention is focused on the order picking process is understandable. E-commerce leads to a multiplication of operations in warehouses. Products that used to go to shops by pallet or box are now delivered by one or two pieces. Those who do not implement an appropriate order picking process for this quickly face lower productivity, rising labour costs and, ultimately, the impossible task of shipping all orders on time. Many smart order picking concepts have therefore been devised in recent years, such as batch picking using intelligent order picking carts or automated order picking systems based on shuttles or robots.
Read also: Nominees Logistica Award known
When the products end up on the packing table after the order picking process, however, it is still a struggle. The products often end up in an oversized shipping box, which therefore has to be manually filled with air bags or crumpled paper. The packing staff have to take the packing note and other freight documents from the printer and put them in the box themselves, and then also stick the shipping label. Closing the box is also still far too often done manually. A few months ago, for example, I was in a warehouse that had invested in an automatic carton sealer, but where the employees used their own tape dispensers anyway, as a precaution, because they didn't feel like walking to that faltering machine again and again. Clumsiness at its finest.
The Logistica Award jury has nominated two companies that have developed ingenious solutions for parts of the packaging process. The first is Inther with the Automated Document Applicator (ADA), a device that fully automatically collects up to four printed transport documents, folds them, puts them in a seal and uses a robotic arm to stick them anywhere on the shipping box. Until now, this was a manual, mostly mandatory operation because the transport documents must be on the outside of the box in international shipments. A device like ADA does not seem to exist yet; although there seems to be a machine somewhere that also attaches transport documents to boxes, it cannot handle more than one sheet in A5 format per box.
The second innovation is Neopost's CVP-500 fully automatic packaging machine. This machine scans the contours of the products to be packed and then punches, folds and seals a perfectly fitting box without human intervention. This machine not only saves cardboard and padding material, but also reduces the volume of the box, resulting in lower shipping costs. Other machines exist that customise boxes, but often this is limited to cutting off the sides so that the box becomes less high. The base of the box does not change, as is the case with the CVP-500. This machine from Neopost was developed in collaboration with Docdata, Bol.com's fulfilment specialist. This week, Neopost announced that one million shipments have now been packed with this machine at its DC in Waalwijk.
What makes these innovations, like the third nomination - Ravas' triple-scale forklift forks for automatic weighing control during the order picking process - so special is that they appear to be market-ready. They offer solutions to existing problems and are already economically interesting for warehouses that need to prepare 400 to 500 boxes per hour for shipping. This has been different in the history of the Logistica Award. The list of winners of this innovation award includes a number of solutions that were very promising in theory, but have not yet found a market. That should not happen to these innovations. After all, after the order picking process, it is now time to make the packaging process a smooth, efficient and error-free operation.
Marcel te Lindert - Journalist logistics and supply chain
