If you’ve never been inside an fully automated carrier sortation facility then you’ll find the video above fascinating watching. Parcels whizz along conveyors to be sorted and are tipped down chutes into awaiting crates ready for shipment all in less than two minutes. What makes this video even more interesting though, is that it’s from Asendia UK and features their six new robots for over-labelling at their parcel processing centre at Heathrow.
The problem Asendia have is that they have parcels shipped to their facility which arrive with domestic UK carrier labels, but they are forwarded on to destination abroad and so need over-labelling for the destination carrier to carry out the final delivery. Not a problem now, they are achieving a rate of up to 7,200 parcels per hour, with the site open seven days a week, and able to operate 24 hours per day.
Parcels arrive onsite and an automated cross-belt sorter, with scanners, printers, digital photography and six robots together take care of the over-labelling, routing, sorting, weighing and dimension-checking of parcels. The system has maximum flexibility for despatch, able to sort into bags, pallet boxes, or onward into air containers.
This was all done with the aim to improve capacity and throughput for customers, who are largely ecommerce retailers… maybe even you! Asendia have specialised for years in delivering packages, parcels, mail and publications to over 200 destinations globally. If you have even modest volumes of shipments going overseas, it’s worth talking to Asendia as they may well be able to save you thousands every year.
Retailers, many of whom have fast-growing ecommerce audiences around the world, will benefit directly from seeing their parcels pass through our facility faster than ever. It’s not surprising several big brand names have already signed up to use the facility.
Having volumetrics for all parcels will help with revenue protection and better control of sizing, which is a key driver within distribution networks. Equally, having photos of all parcels is a very good security benefit.
– Luis Barros, COO , Asendia UK
