Parcels: time for tech
Sortation technology is playing a key role as courier, express and parcel firms emerge into a post-pandemic world while striving to reconfigure supply chains that have experienced major disruptions and delays in deliveries.
THE BEUMER Group report – Courier, express and parcel 2022 outlook: Challenges and perspectives – says an increasing trend will be for companies to look to technology, rather than physical expansion, to enable handing of greater volumes, whether for space reasons, time constraints, a wish for cost-effectiveness or a combination of these factors.
The report adds that price is taking a back seat while reliability becomes the key operational driver. To deliver faster, CEP companies are looking to improve local capacity with critically connected, smaller networks that involve shorter distances.
The report reads ‘We expect to see an increasing number of decentralised hubs with smaller, localised distribution centres in the future’.
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The challenge for CEP companies continues to be handling higher and higher parcel volumes. Many are in a race to cope with capacity and will need to be careful to avoid ad hoc investments in their attempts to prevent losing customers. Many will find they simply don’t have the time to build new hubs to cope with capacity issues and we anticipate seeing larger companies acquiring smaller ones as a means to bolster capacity. For others, it will be more cost effective to optimise their existing operations than acquiring or establishing new centres.
For example, Swiss Post has kept pace with growth in parcel volumes by expanding capacity within our existing sites; Second, making use of the capacity that has been freed up in its letter sorting business by building parcel sorters in letters centres. It is also expanding its network with new sites with robotic technology taking on a greater role. This is based on the realisation that it can’t keep up with the capacity demand without a higher degree of automation.
New sort system optimised for Peaks
BEUMER GROUP has introduced a new type of small- and medium-sized parcels sortation system into operation. Installed for the first time in Germany, Peak 2021, the system enables more efficient sorting of the growing number of small and medium-sized eCommerce parcels handled by operators.
The system processes the sorting centre’s small and medium parcels separately from larger items in a new extension to an existing facility. On arrival at the centre, the parcels will have already been sorted according to size. Once they have been sorted by destination, parcels are batch-accumulated in a compartment and released to a fully automatic roll cage filling station. A system design such as the 126m x 35m extension will be able to add +40,000 parcels per hour to a parcel centre that might be pressed for capacity.
Being able to sort small and medium parcels separately from larger payloads sustains and complements many parcel operators' ongoing strategies to deliver by bicycle in cities and by smaller e-vehicles in the suburbs.
Sales director Oliver Schopp says: “The sortation system requires only a 126m x 35m extension to the existing parcel centre. It features a carefully planned floor layout that gives a natural one-direction flow, so materials never cross. The solution supports parcel networks as the number of shipments continues to increase and is implemented with a particular emphasis on making intralogistics as smart and sustainable as possible.”
For more information, visit www.beumergroup.com
