Swiss Post’s YellowCube grows with AutoStore

Swiss Post, the national postal service of Switzerland, takes on the practical side of goods management, storage, and shipping for external companies. Their centralized inventory management solution called YellowCube provides a comprehensive logistics solution for distance selling.

YellowCube can assist clients with storing goods, including dangerous, bulky, or tiny products, and those that require temperature-controlled storage, such as pharmaceutical or chemical items. The company also handles picking, packaging, shipping, delivering, and returns of products by customers.

The advantages for companies outsourcing their inventory management to Swiss Post’s YellowCube solution are many. For example, YellowCube makes it possible for smaller- to medium-sized businesses to afford logistic structures usually only affordable to large companies. Clients also benefit from YellowCube’s speed and quality of picking goods and returns processing.

Rise in e-commerce prompts AutoStore installation

“Over the last several years, e-commerce has climbed steadily,” says Patrick Stucki, Head of Business Development at Swiss Post. This is part of the reason why YellowCube decided to install an AutoStore system, empowered by Swisslog, at their fulfillment center in Oftringen, Switzerland.

Like many other global businesses, Swiss Post discovered that online customers want fast shipment, efficient delivery and return services, and multi-channel options. These factors encouraged them to invest in their own e-commerce logistics solution.

“The goal [of YellowCube] was to offer companies a full-service logistics package for e-commerce business,” Stucki adds.

The heart of YellowCube is a logistics solution — a compact, fully automated storage and picking system that allows even smaller and medium-sized shippers to benefit from commercial logistics structures.

How YellowCube works

“YellowCube gives online retailers the ability to fully focus on their core business of product sales,” Stucki explains.

Here’s how the innovative logistics solution works:

• Swiss Post adds customer goods to the fully automated AutoStore facility installed by Swisslog.
• YellowCube accepts orders through a system linked to its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
• YellowCube delivers the ordered items to online shoppers without making a detour through the retailers.
• Automatic handling accelerates the logistics processes and allows for next-day delivery, even if orders arrive late in the day.

What AutoStore looks like at YellowCube

The AutoStore system at YellowCube is built on a grid stretching over 4,320 cubic meters (152,559 cubic feet). A total of 35 Robots move over the aluminum grid at a rate of 3 meters (9.8 feet) per second, lifting goods out of the Bins at a speed of 1.6 meters (5.2 feet) per second.

There are 32,000 Bins and 10 Picking and Packing Stations in the system, which handles 70 Bin movements per hour and per picking station. The capacity could, in the future, be increased to 240 Bin movements per hour.

How YellowCube benefits from AutoStore

YellowCube’s AutoStore system, installed over a period of 12 months, has provided their clients with the benefits associated with the system’s speed and quality in picking and returns processing.

It was possible to interface the AutoStore system to the existing SAP Extended Warehouse Management system to incorporate different product identification systems. As a result, the goods-to-person picking strategy ensures a high degree of process reliability.

YellowCube, in turn, has saved on labor and energy costs, while the fully automated, ergonomic system also made employees’ lives easier.

In addition, the system can work around the clock, including weekends, to ensure goods are delivered to customers as quickly as possible. It also maximizes the use of existing storage space in the YellowCube warehouse.