Corby warehouse firm to invest £11m in 'state-of-the-art automation'

The owners of a vast e-commerce warehouse in Corby have promised a further £11m investment in automation at the £60m facility off Geddington Road.

Third-party logistics (3PL) firm Europa Warehouse stores and processes drinks - wine, beer and spirits - from its 715,000 sq ft facility - the area of about 11 football pitches.

Europa Warehouse, a division of leading logistics firm, Europa Worldwide Group, is working with psb intralogistics GmbH to implement the new automation technology.

Maria Torrent March, Europa Warehouse’s logistics director, said: “After a whirlwind year in 2020, where resources within logistics companies were pushed to their limits, we are delighted to be able to announce a major investment into automation at our largest warehouse in Corby.

"The new technology will allow us to fulfil our commitment to our customers – improving efficiencies to cater for the increase in demand.”

Europa completed the £60m facility last year, doubling its logistics portfolio.

The new, cutting edge technology will create 'increased efficiencies' for Europa’s customers, including a number of e-commerce and blue-chip online retailers – most of which have experienced vast growth following the boom in online sales.

The new automation includes the use of Goods-to-Person (GTP) technology to eliminate time consuming and unproductive activities.

These new efficiencies, including the use of an Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) will allow Europa to pick 136,000 bottles per day, enabling the 3pl experts to handle a capacity of circa fifty million bottles per annum, whilst the Multi Order Picking Station (MOPS), will offer 'huge labour management benefits' and improved efficiencies.

Automation will improve pick rates (items picked vs. hours of work) by using a rotating system which holds up to 48 orders open at one time.

Human errors will be a thing of the past as the selektron Warehouse Control System will remove pick errors and allow pick speed and accuracy to be monitored improving efficiency.

Ms Torrent March said: “Most importantly, automation will allow Europa Warehouse to provide a streamlined service, giving us the ability to better plan and predict the flow of goods, assisting our customers in the ever-growing demand for e-commerce and support the developing consumer trend of next day deliveries.”

Peter Light, business development manager at psb, added: “We are delighted to be supporting Europa Warehouse with new automation at its state-of-the-art Corby site.

"Our intelligent automated manufacturing and distribution technology solutions will transform how Europa fulfils its customer’s orders. The concept is proven and reliable, and the modular design of psb selektron has been individually adapted with intelligent processes to work alongside the existing IT infrastructure.”

Europa Warehouse provides a range of services including e-commerce fulfilment, production services, inventory management, packing, labelling, special deliveries, final assembly, quality control and critical parts management.