MOVING YOUR BUSINESS FORWARD

Amazon.de is Germany's leading online retailer of books, CDs, DVDs and videos. The strength of Amazon.de lies in its wide and ever increasing range of products. Nine logistics centres in Germany ensure that orders are handled as quickly as possible. Vanderlande has been responsible for fitting out and equipping Amazon's logistics centres in Europe for many years. The logistics centre in Bad Hersfeld is a typical example. The centre covers an area in excess of 42,500 m2 and offers flexibility and reliability, which are both vital for the industry. Bad Hersfeld had just seven months in which to implement an order-picking system that could cope with some 250,000 products and 50,000 orders on a daily basis. The system had to have the capacity to be extended and had to operate reliably for the Christmas trade in 2000. It had to be possible for new products to be included in the range without any problem and, despite fluctuating order volumes (seasonal peaks, such as Christmas, vs. troughs), achievement of consistently high per capita productivity

was essential. In addition, there was to be no excessive investment in technology and in particular minimal levels of resource had to be sufficient in off-peak periods. It was only possible to meet these challenges with the effective co-operation of everyone involved.Large quantities of orders for just one item are typical of E-fulfilment and Amazon.de is no exception. Handling all of these shipments places high demands on the storage and conveyor system's dynamic capabilities. The system is always readily available and has already been successfully extended on four occasions. Each time, the extension took place in the run-up to the Christmas trading period and each extension is testimony to the company's huge confidence in the reliability of Vanderlande Industries. At Amazon.de, it wasn't only throughput times that were significantly improved. Process management and production back-up were also considerably improved as a result of process visualisation and the static organisation of process data.

FACT SHEETAmazon

System

> Products: approx. 1,500,000 > Products in stock: approx. 600,000 > Orders/shipments per day: 100,000 to 300,000 > ODS stations: approx. 45 > Packing positions: 90 > Shipment labelling lines: 8 > Shipment sorting: 2 POSISORTER > Shipment units: 150,000/day > Capacity Goods In: Max. total 1,100 totes/hour > Batch buffer: Max. total 1,200 totes/hour > Rebin station: approx. 450 picks/hour > Packing station: approx. 100 parcels/h > Shipping line (Slam Line): max. 1,250 > shipment units/hour > Dispatch sorting: max. 6,500 parcels/h

Process

The high proportion of B and C products and saleability changes goes against the grain of traditional ABC zoning and full automation. Picking is therefore conducted manually from shelving systems. Orders containing more than one item go through a two-phase picking procedure with product-orientated distribution and subsequent order consolidation in a consolidation buffer. The picking operation is supported by tote conveyors, which reduce the amount of time spent by staff moving between locations. At 35 rebin stations, barcode scanners are used to allocate products manually to individual orders via 54 sorting

compartments, after which they are sent for packing. Packing stations have automatic shipping label lines that read, weigh and label parcels and conduct a validity check. The parcels are then forwarded to sorting for shipment. A POSISORTER provided by Vanderlande sorts the cartons by shipment type and destination.

The material flow computer assists with > directing totes from Goods In to storage areas > Space management in the batch buffer > Stock replenishment and directing to rebin stations > Communication and data processing within slam lines > Guidance to the shipment sorter

Additional information

> Highly flexible: The rebin stations and batch buffers have been extended in response to initially high rates of growth (20 – 30 %).

> Significant increase in capacity > Considerable improvement in process management and

production back-up as a result of process visualisation and the static organisation of process data.

> The resulting standard jobs with defined job content simplify human resource management.

> Reduction of time spent moving around by staff > New products (CD and MP3 players, digital cameras,

etc.) can be easily incorporated within the process.

Facts & figures

> Vanderlande - Fact sheet: Amazon This information is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment on the part of Vanderlande Industries.

> vanderlande.com