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COOP Norway: 30 percent more throughput during ongoing operations
COOP Norway: 30 percent more throughput during ongoing operations
Expanding a highly dynamic multi-temperature logistics center for roughly 1,200 stores during ongoing operations with an increase in pick performance by more than 30 percent daily is a tremendous challenge as such. But when, in addition, store and online orders continue to soar due to various lockdowns and the teams are only allowed to work with severe limitations because of Covid 19 restrictions, then a lot more than just technical and organizational knowledge is needed on both sides for the project to succeed. WITRON and the food retailer COOP from Norway have demonstrated this impressively.
Customer: Coop Norge Handel AS
From the highly automated facility (with five different temperature zones), COOP supplies roughly 1,200 stores located across Norway, from the metropolis region around Oslo and the far North of Norway from an assortment of 13,000 different items.
Location
Jessheim (near Oslo airport), Norway
Industry sector
Retail / Distribution
Products
13,000 items in five different temperature zones - Dry, fresh, fruits, vegetables, frozen
Solutions
OPM, DPS, CPS, fully automated shipping buffer
Volume
625,000 picked cases per day
Special features of the project
The task addressed to project manager Gaute Glomlien from COOP and project manager Holger Weiß from WITRON was described as follows: to expand the dry, fresh, and frozen goods logistics facility from 52,000 square meters to 84,000 square meters, to increase throughput by 30 percent, to integrate 11 new COM machines (in the dry, fresh, and frozen food area), to install additional pallet and tray AS/RS aisles, as well as various conveyor system components, to increase the size of the fully automated shipping buffer, and to update the corresponding WMS system to the latest technology.
Challenge
All components had to be integrated into the existing material flow during ongoing operations. Of course, without any loss of performance - considering all Covid 19 safety measures. The expansion is probably the most challenging brownfield project in WITRON’s company history to date, in which existing technology was modernized, and new modules were integrated - both in the existing building and in a new extension facility.
COOP is a showcase project for WITRON. Many international customers visit the facility. WITRON was able to impressively prove how an expansion can be carried out on budget and on time during ongoing operations despite challenging frame conditions.
Customer opinion
„The upgrade has given us a state-of-the-art solution that has been enhanced during ongoing operations to a throughput volume that could not even have been anticipated in the original design phase. We were able to save millions of euros yearly in the past with the WITRON systems. Therefore, it was clear that we would also realize the expansion with WITRON and their leading logistics technology”, explained COOP project manager Gaute Glomlien.