Richard Kearns always knows how his supply chains, his new warehouse in Hernando, Mississippi, or his logistics processes are performing - because he receives immediate feedback every single day. As Executive Vice President of Distribution & Logistics at Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), he serves demanding customers: the store operators are independent retailers who expect to be impressed by logistics performance every day. This is made possible by a highly automated full-range logistics center, designed and implemented by WITRON, which supplies 3,400 stores with a portfolio of currently 54,600 different dry, fresh, and frozen items. The facility is designed for a daily picking capacity of more than 460,000 cases and ranks among the most innovative and high-performance logistics centers in the United States. The results achieved are impressive. Labor and transportation costs have been significantly reduced.

At its distribution centers in Brisbane and Sydney, Coles uses state-of-the-art WITRON technology to pick 1.6 billion sales units annually from a dry goods range comprising 19,000 different items. More than 90 percent of these items are picked either fully automatically or at semi-automated workstations. The WITRON solution has fundamentally transformed not only the processes in the distribution centers but also enhanced efficiency and product availability in the stores. Working conditions for Coles’ employees have also significantly improved. As a result, nearly 18 million kilograms of manual lifting and carrying have been completely eliminated each week across the entire supply chain. By halving the required footprint compared to a manual warehouse, the ecological impact has been substantially reduced - enabling the implementation of a business model that is both economically viable and environmentally sustainable. A third, even larger logistics center is already under construction in Melbourne.

Food retailer Axfood and its logistics partner WITRON planned and implemented a forward-looking omnichannel distribution centre. From here, more than 1,500 stores and many thousands of end customers will be supplied with a wide range of over 22,000 dry, fresh and frozen items via click + collect and home delivery. The highly automated facility is designed for a daily picking performance of 1.6 million pick units.

He describes how the typical WITRON mentality - pragmatic, direct and often stubborn - helps to shape the company's success and the challenges that growing diversity brings with it.

Er beschreibt, wie die typische WITRON-Mentalität – pragmatisch, direkt und oft stur – den Erfolg des Unternehmens mitgestaltet und welche Herausforderungen die wachsende Vielfalt mit sich bringt.

The two experts share their experiences from international projects and explain how companies can prepare their employees, IT and processes for these extensive changes.

Die beiden Experten teilen ihre Erfahrungen aus internationalen Projekten und erläutern, wie Unternehmen ihre Mitarbeiter, IT und Prozesse auf diese umfassenden Veränderungen vorbereiten können.

Dr Stefan Bauer, Business Unit Director at WITRON, and Dominik Simbeck, Head of Competence Center Basis Project Support at WITRON, report on WITRON's interface offensive in the podcast - architecturally, in the UX process and in visualisation.

Dr. Stefan Bauer, Business Unit Director bei WITRON, und Dominik Simbeck, Leiter Competence Center Basis Project Support bei WITRON, berichten im Podcast von WITRONs Oberflächen-Offensive - architektonisch, im UX-Prozess und in der Visualisierung.

From the main building alone, the near/non-food area, more than 700 shops and many thousands of home shopping customers are supplied from a range of more than 100,000 items per year. On a peak day, the WITRON OPM, AIO and CPS systems pick more than 470,000 retail units.

Allein vom Hauptgebäude, dem Near-/ Non-Food-Bereich, werden aus einem Sortiment von mehr als 100.000 Artikeln p.a. über 700 Filialen und viele Tausend Homeshopping-Kunden beliefert. An einem Spitzentag kommissionieren die WITRON-Systeme OPM, AIO und CPS mehr als 470.000 Handelseinheiten.

The story of WITRON’s Order Picking Machinery system (OPM) begins at Walter Winkler’s coffee table in Parkstein. The breakthrough came with a cake and a cake server from the WITRON founder. The COM - the heart of the OPM system was born. Just as a cake lifter glides under the piece of cake, the COM moves under the items to be picked and uses them to load pallets and roll containers for the food retailers’ stores fully automatically, product-gently, store-friendly, and without errors. More podcasts, reports, videos: https://ideenraum.witron.de/en/

Die Geschichte des Order Picking Machinery (OPM)-Systems von WITRON beginnt an der Kaffeetafel von Walter Winkler in Parkstein. Ein Kuchen und ein Tortenheber des WITRON-Gründers brachten den Durchbruch. Die COM – das Herzstück des OPM-Systems war geboren. Wie ein Tortenheber unter das Kuchenstück gleitet, fährt die COM unter die zu kommissionierenden Artikel und belädt mit ihnen vollautomatisch, produktschonend, filialgerecht und fehlerfrei Paletten und Rollcontainer für die Stores der Lebensmitteleinzelhändler. Noch mehr Podcasts, Artikel, Videos und Themen finden Sie https://ideenraum.witron.de/

In this Podcast we talk with Gaute Glomlien from COOP and Holger Weiß from WITRON about their project in Norway and why chose WITRON. More podcasts, reports, videos: https://ideenraum.witron.de/en/

Both agree. AI technology offers a wide range of optimization potential - also for optimizing processes in the distribution center as well as the entire supply chain. But high data quality is not the only crucial factor. Equally important for the data models are the experiences of people and the requirements of consumers. More podcasts, reports, videos: https://ideenraum.witron.de/en/

Beide sind sich einig. KI-Technologie bietet ein vielfältiges Optimierungspotential – auch für die Optimierung der Prozesse im Verteilzentrum sowie in der gesamten Supply Chain. Doch nicht nur eine hohe Datenqualität ist entscheidend. Ebenso dürfen die Erfahrung der Menschen sowie die Anforderungen der Konsumenten in den Datenmodellen nicht vergessen werden. Noch mehr Podcasts, Artikel, Videos und Themen finden Sie https://ideenraum.witron.de/

Johannes Schweiger is managing director of WITRON Service GmbH + Co. KG and talks about ergonomics in the distribution center in the “logistics podcast”. In the interview, he explains that a distribution center is a holistic structure where economical, ecological, and social factors have to be harmonized in order to generate sustainable competitive processes for the operator in the long term.

Johannes Schweiger ist Geschäftsführer der WITRON Service GmbH + Co. KG und diskutiert im „Logistik Podcast“ über Ergonomie im Verteilzentrum. Im Gespräch erklärt er, dass ein Verteilzentrum ein ganzheitliches Wirkungsgefüge ist, in welchem es gilt, Faktoren wie Ökonomie, Ökologie und soziale Faktoren in Einklang zu bringen, um für den Betreiber dauerhaft nachhaltige Wettbewerbsprozesse zu generieren

At the time of the Teams interview, Helmut Prieschenk is on a two-week business trip in North America, visiting customers, logistics facilities, construction sites, and is learning a lot about sustainability made in USA. In this interview he explains, how sustainability is changing in logistics, why this topic is facing a paradigm shift, and why ecology, economy, and social factors are not contradictory.

Helmut Prieschenk ist zum Zeitpunkt des Teams-Interviews auf einer zweiwöchigen Dienstreise in Nordamerika – besucht Kunden, begutachtet Logistikprojekte vor Ort, schaut sich Baustellen an und lernt viel über Nachhaltigkeit made in USA. Im Interview erklärt er, wie sich das Thema Nachhaltigkeit in der Logistik verändert, warum das Thema vor einem Paradigmenwechsel steht und Ökologie, Ökonomie und soziale Faktoren kein Widerspruch sind.