A key role in the goods movements at Tchibo’s distribution centre is played by the 3,120 metres of TWINVEYOR™ transport systems, from Vanderlande Industries. The TWINVEYOR™’s modular, highly integrated system concept makes it the optimum solution for the transport, sorting and other logistics functions of products in totes. Tchibo’s challenge was the need for often delicate products to be transported loose in totes at relatively high speeds over long distances, which meant that conventional roller tracks were unsuitable.

Order picking is controlled by a paperless process, with picking orders transmitted by RF communication to specially developed ‘pickmobiles’. These allow operators to deal with several orders in parallel, increasing efficiency and reducing walking distances. All picks are continuously checked with weighing equipment integrated in the pickmobiles, thereby providing a built-in quality control stage, which allows any necessary corrections to be carried out immediately and reduces the need for later handling. 

After picking, totes are automatically transported away from the picking stations by the TWINVEYOR™ system. This takes them to an automatic sorting system, which distributes them to 24 dynamically accessible delivery buffer tracks, each with a capacity of 80 totes, for the various delivery routes. Once all totes for a route have been collected, they are transferred to a fine sorter where they are sorted by the stores to which they will be delivered. Totes are then transported in reverse delivery order to two high-speed palletising units. The system allows up to 3,000 totes per hour to be sorted into the required sequence and palletised, after which they are ready for loading.