Mercadona, the Spanish retail company, has commissioned Cimcorp to design and implement a fully automated order picking system for fresh produce. Cimcorp will also take care of the material flow control.
Mercadona is investing in new warehouse technology at its Guadix distribution centre. To achieve improved efficiency and customer satisfaction, Mercadona has awarded Cimcorp the contract to supply the automation system for full-crate picking.
The scope of supply includes order-picking robots for fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as for meat products. The total material flow will be controlled by Cimcorp’s warehouse management software, WCS. Cimcorp will also take care of the installation and start up. The system, which will start operation once the construction of the new logistics building is finished at the end of 2013, is based on Cimcorp’s order processing island concept. The island is self-sufficient, taking care of goods reception; put-away; location of stored items; retrieval planning; picking of crates; sorting and preparation of crates into discrete orders; and loading of the orders onto transport units ready for delivery.
“Due to very fast order processing with Cimcorp’s robots, our customers in retail and food & beverage are able to shorten lead times, which is a critical factor for perishable products with limited shelf lives,” states Markku Vesa, CEO of Cimcorp Oy.
Cimcorp Oy is a Finnish company specializing in material handling and intralogistics automation using robotics and advanced software technologies. The Cimcorp Group – which consists of Cimcorp Oy in Finland and RMT Robotics Ltd in Canada – has become a leading supplier worldwide to the tyre industry, and is also strong as a supplier to the food & retail and postal services sectors. The group has 250 employees and has delivered 2000 robotic systems across five continents.
Mercadona is a 100% Spanish-owned distribution company within the supermarket segment. It has a presence in 47 provinces in 16 Autonomous Communities with 1,414 supermarkets (31/01/2013) that, with an /average retail area of between 1,300 and 1,500 square meters, represent a 13.5% share of Spain’s total food retail space. Over 70,000 people are making their careers at the company to satisfy the needs of the more than 4.6 million households that do their grocery shopping at Mercadona every day.
For more information, please contact Kari Miikkulainen, Sales Manager for Cimcorp Oy, at kari.miikkulainen@cimcorp.com.
For media information and photos, please contact Paula Ovaskainen by phone at +35826775221 or by e-mail at paula.ovaskainen@cimcorp.com.