Inside Yellowcube

In 2013, the package volume of logistics business, Swiss Post, reached a record high of 114 million units, thanks in no small part to the rise of e-commerce.

"Over the last several years, e-commerce has climbed steadily by between 4 and nearly 10% a year,” explains Patrick Stucki, Head of Business Development at Swiss Post.

The demands of online shoppers for fast shipment, delivery and return services as well as multi-channel options have grown in equal measure, encouraging Swiss Post to invest in their own e-commerce logistics solution.

"The goal was to offer companies a full-service logistics package for e-commerce business,” continues Stucki.

The heart of the YellowCube is a logistics solution, a compact, fully automated storage and picking system, to allow even smaller and medium-sized shippers to benefit from marketable logistics structures.

"YellowCube gives online retailers the ability to fully focus on their core business of product sales,” states Stucki.

The idea is simple. Swiss Post adds customer goods to the fully automated AutoStore facility implemented by Swisslog, accepts orders through a system linked to its own ERP system, and delivers the ordered items to online shoppers without making a detour through the retailer. Automatic handling accelerates the logistics processes and allows next-day deliveries, even if orders arrive late in the day.

Return processes are another important part of the concept. If a recipient returns an order, it goes directly back to YellowCube, where Swiss Post checks the items and returns them to storage.

The detail planning phase was devoted to fine-tuning the material flow concept developed by Swisslog. The team toured existing facilities, conducted real-time simulations, and specified all the components.

"Visiting several reference sites during the analysis phase had already given us a good

idea of the dimensioning possibilities,” states project manager Patrick Stucki with satisfaction as he recalls this important aspect of the pilot phase. "We were able to very quickly define the facility’s required initial size.”

Built in one year, the YellowCube facility offers 4 320 cubic meters of space – enough for 32 000 AutoStore bins. 35 robots quickly and efficiently transport stored items to ten picking and packaging stations attached to the sides of the grid structure.

"We are achieving 70 bin movements per hour and picking station. If the system proves itself and we decide to go to the next expansion stage, we could increase its

performance to 240 bin movements per hour and picking station,” explains Stucki.

When launching the project, one of the most important requirements for the Swiss Post project team was interfacing the YellowCube facility to the existing SAP EWM (Extended Warehouse Management) system.

"For the first time in an AutoStore project, we had to map a third-party logistics provider in SAP,” says Res Bernhard, Senior Consultant for IT & Process Planning.

Swisslog IT experts mapped all the processes in such a way that no deviations from the SAP standard were necessary. They also designed the system for easy and reliable operation, so even those without special SAP knowledge could comfortably run it.

"One shipper works with serial numbers, for example, while another uses IMEI numbers or information that is totally irrelevant to other shippers,” explains Bernhard.

"AutoStore employees need to be familiar with all three scenarios so they know exactly what data to enter.”

The YellowCube facility based on the Click&Pick solution concept offers several advantages. Smaller and medium-sized online retailers gain access to logistic structures that otherwise only large companies could afford. They also benefit from the speed and quality in vital picking and returns processing. Plant expansions are easy to implement, during ongoing operations, whilst the goods-to-person picking strategy ensures a high degree of process reliability.