FAN Courier - Vanderlande

State-of-the-art sortation in Romania

Two Vanderlande CROSSORTERs and a TRAYSORTER are helping Romanian parcel company FAN Courier successfully embrace the benefits of automation.

With around 700 employees organised in three shifts, more than 180,000 items a day are sorted in its main hub in Bucharest and handed over to couriers, which equates to over 36 million item deliveries a year.

Speed is of the essence

FAN Courier’s desire to move from manual operations to automated processes was largely driven by significant increases in e-commerce, combined with the scarcity of labour and the difficulty to react quickly to peak time demands.

The above factors had already brought FAN Courier into contact with Vanderlande, resulting in the installation of a TRAYSORTER system that increased sorting capacity by 5,600 parcels per hour.

The success of this system saw FAN Courier take further steps towards automation with the addition of two Vanderlande CROSSORTER systems in its main distribution centre (DC).

With a combined sorting capacity of 39,000 parcels per hour, the CROSSORTERs offer a highly flexible flow for sorting parcels of many different sizes with different types of packaging.

A relationship built on people and technology

This ambitious project has resulted in the creation of the largest sorting centre in the FAN Courier network. The installation of the two Vanderlande sorting systems has led to an increase in sorting capacity from 16,000 to 44,000 parcels per hour.

“We chose Vanderlande’s CROSSORTER because of its high-capacity sorting capabilities,” says FAN Courier’s Mechanical Engineering and Installations Supervisor Florin Ilie. “Also, the efficient design of the system and the large gravity-fed chutes were big factors in our decision, as well as the overall ‘gentle handling’ and the way it protects the parcels.”

Thanks to the installation of Vanderlande’s CROSSORTERs, FAN Courier has been able to reduce its dependence on manual labour with a scalable system. This has facilitated an increase in capacity to almost double current levels.

Automation is the reliable solution

Together with Vanderlande, FAN Courier plans to develop and deploy the required automation levels in its future parcel handling systems, and support the network expansion with scalable solutions in order to cope with the ever-increasing volumes.

“We expect continued growth and our future strategy includes increasing the number of regional DCs and levels of automation in our most important hubs,” adds FAN Courier’s Warehouse Director Marian Stanescu. “We consider Vanderlande to be an excellent partner because of the comprehensive customer support, the quality of the product and of course the high innovation levels.”

It was a partnership that began with the TRAYSORTER and has continued with the installation of the largest parcel facility in FAN Courier’s network. The project was achieved on time and on budget, and has been a success because of the mutual trust and problem-solving mentality displayed by both sides, as Marian concludes.

“Vanderlande’s willingness to listen to our needs as a customer, and then provide quality, innovative equipment as a solution proves why they are leaders in their field. The CROSSORTERs help us to meet our business objectives and that’s just one of many reasons why we consider Vanderlande a reliable partner.”