“If a company wants to move with the growing e-commerce market, it must align its distribution center well with the demand. In a physical store, there is a completely different flow of goods than in e-commerce. There are not only high peaks due to Black Friday, Christmas and Easter, the online purchasing behavior of end consumers also fluctuates greatly, due to the weather, the season or whatever happens to be trending. It is important for e-commerce companies to move with the whims of the market, both in terms of assortment and system technology.” Rinus Geurts is speaking. He has been responsible for business development at Inther Group since 2024. The company from Venray-Oostrum is a hybrid system integrator specializing in automation solutions for picking, packing, storing and sorting goods in warehouses worldwide. It guides customers throughout the entire technical life cycle of the system, analyses, adjusts and optimizes where necessary. For example, it has now successfully completed projects at various e-commerce (and other) companies worldwide, including Picnic, CoolBlue, Obelink, Zeeman and HEMA.

Orders, flow and growth expectations
Geurts: “If you want to take your E-commerce to a higher level, it is necessary to map out your online orders, flow and growth expectations. Using a dataset - via the WMS - we determine improvements for the future together with the customer. We make an analysis of the articles they sell so that we can define which handling unit they fall within and which picking strategies could be interesting for efficient processing of the orders.”

Smart software
"The secret of an optimized distribution center lies in the choice of high-quality systems and smart software for optimal distribution of the workload", Geurts continues. “Inther offers customers not only an automation process, but also smart software and a bit of data science so that in a high-performance warehouse, all variables can be taken into account – both fast and slow movers, high peaks, large and small orders, but also the picking sequence. After all, you don't want your ordered detergent to be picked onto your potato chips. Thanks to real-time and historical information, we can provide a complete picture of the warehouse at any time, and we know in advance what the impact of the orders is on the workload in the various zones. With adjustments to the software, we also implement improvements over time to, for example, realize a shorter lead time without having to add hardware immediately. That is of course much faster, easier and cheaper. Compare it to a car that is tuned instead of having engine parts replaced.”

Inther is hardware-independent. “When new hardware is needed, we always choose the hardware that best suits the customer’s sales flow and type of products.” One of those large e-commerce customers is HEMA. “At HEMA, we made sure that the automation system can handle both the constant flow of goods/products and the workload during peak periods. A hybrid solution was chosen that includes automated order picking machines with a miniload system with space for 13,000 plastic containers, two miniload cranes that can place the required containers on a roller conveyor that transports them to the shelf locations, a shuttle system with 75 shuttles that have space for 33,000 plastic containers, multiple order picking stations and order picking carts with pick-to-light technology, box erectors, label applicators, Automated Document Inserters, conveyors, etc.” It wasn’t built that way right from the start. It has grown, optimized and adapted to the changing flows of goods at HEMA over the years.

Innovation
Inther Group continues to innovate. For example, it recently successfully completed an e-commerce project in which a unique combination of various intralogistics technologies was chosen, such as AMRs (Automated Mobile Robots), Autobaggers and an A-Frame, a fully automated solution for quickly processing complex orders, guaranteeing the highest possible productivity and an optimal material flow, even during peak loads. Thanks to continuous inventory monitoring, real-time video registration and product heat mapping, orders are processed 100% correctly. Geurts: “We realised this unique combination for QuickBox Fulfillment in Atlanta (US), a 3PL company that processes online orders from end consumers for refills for Pura fragrance diffusers. Even before Black Friday, the absolute peak season for the distribution centre, the company was able to benefit from a fully automated system.”

World premiere
System integration is the key to the success of this first. “This specific hybrid integration of different types of intralogistics technologies has never been used anywhere in the world before. The Inther A-frame with dual filling station drops the products on the AMRs. These then distribute the majority of the orders over four Autobag packaging machines, after which the sorting takes place. Approximately 70% of the orders are picked, packed and sorted fully automatically. The remaining percentage - mainly the slow movers with a size that is too large for the A-Frame - are packed manually by employees of the company using an Inther pick-by-light system. The only thing QuickBox has to focus on is refilling the A-Frame. The rest of the process is fully automatic.”