With SCALLOG Goods To Person robotics, the 3PL DISPEO is meeting its objectives for stock consolidation, logistics performance and CSR at its Evreux warehouse. Focus on the 1st European logistician to use the SCALLOG solution for multi-customer operations, particularly in the cosmetics and food sectors.
The 33,000 m² multi-activity logistics site in Evreux covers and optimizes all its customers’ flows – e-commerce, retail and non-retail, representing more than 15 million consumer sales units processed per year. It is a perfect illustration of the 3PL’s strategy of providing its warehouses with automation tailored to the specific needs and product types of its customers, by selecting the most appropriate technology according to the triptych – Productivity, Quality and Cost.
To this end, the Evreux site has relied since 2016 on the SCALLOG robotic solution – shelves transported by robots to operators – which has evolved over the years, from PoC to large-scale installation.
Today, the SCALLOG solution ensures that the Evreux warehouse massifies stocks and speeds up retail order picking for its cosmetics and food customers, while optimizing working conditions for its employees.
Customized automation at DISPEO’s Evreux warehouse
DISPEO is a major player in e-commerce and omnichannel logistics, with sales of over 80 million euros and 1,000 employees. DISPEO operates 5 logistics sites in the North of France and close to the Ile-de-France region, combining automation and innovation throughout the value chain. Our aim is to guarantee our customers the most efficient organization and processes according to their activity, products and needs, in order to satisfy them as fully as possible. The Evreux warehouse is a perfect example of this.
Multi-activity and multi-customer, DISPEO’s Evreux warehouse, with 170 to 350 employees depending on the period, 5 cells of 6,000 m² and one of 3,000 m², covers all logistics services, from stock management to dispatch, particularly in the cosmetics, food and fashion sectors. These services are tailored to the business, product types and customer needs. In 2016, ADS, an e-commerce logistics player in the DISPEO fold since 2018, was looking for a ‘tailor-made’ automation solution to rationalize the stocks of a large depth – numerous models offered per product line – and speed up retail order preparations, while optimising the working conditions of its operators. The SCALLOG robotic solution quickly established itself as the ‘tailor-made automation’ solution required by the Evreux warehouse, in terms of flexibility, performance and reduction in the drudgery of tasks.
Anthony Herouard, Logistics Team Leader at DISPEO, explains: “SCALLOG’s flexible and scalable Goods to Man solution ensured that we could optimize our logistics, from storage to order picking, by universe, in the face of a wide variety of SKUs to manage and numerous activity peaks to absorb.”
From PoC to large-scale installation, the collaboration between DISPEO and SCALLOG has been articulated in 3 key stages: the installation of a Starter Kit offering in 2016, the first extension in 2018 and the second in 2019 following a move and extensions. DISPEO’s Evreux warehouse is equipped with a Goods to Person solution from SCALLOG covering an area of 2,500 m², comprising 549 mobile shelves transported by 49 AGV robots and 6 stations (five dedicated to order picking and one to replenishment).
A further 4 stations are used during seasonal peaks to reinforce order picking and replenishment, as well as on a daily basis for inventory control.
Guillaume Frant, DISPEO’s Marketing Director, comments: “With SCALLOG, our high-performance, multi-purpose Evreux site has an automation solution that fits in perfectly with our approach to customer and employee satisfaction, while meeting our commitments to agility, performance and CSR.”
From enhanced performance to CSR commitments
The Goods to Person SCALLOG solution has enabled DISPEO’s Evreux warehouse, in its 2,500 m² automated storage area, to massify its customers’ stocks in the cosmetics sector, with numerous class A, B and C references, and in the dry food sector, with over 2,000 class C references. It has also increased productivity in retail order picking by a factor of 3, to 180 picks per hour. The acceleration of order picking has not been at the expense of quality, and the already low error rate has even been improved. Logistics operators are guided at every stage by the ‘Spot to Light’ and ‘Put to Light’ systems, ensuring speed and quality of execution in retail picking.
What’s more, the Evreux warehouse, with the help of the SCALLOG solution, is proving capable of absorbing ever-increasing peaks in activity over ever-shorter periods, with logistics flows that can double or even triple over a few weeks, such as ‘the festive season’, or a few days, such as ‘Black Friday’, ‘Valentine’s Day’.
Anthony Herouard, Logistics Team Leader at DISPEO, adds: “In just one hour, a referent operator can train a temporary operator in the SCALLOG solution so that he or she is fully operational and autonomous.”
The Goods to Person solution also enables the Evreux warehouse to improve the quality of life and working conditions of its operators, in line with DISPEO’s CSR commitments, from reduced drudgery to inclusion. It frees operators from travel and handling. In this way, the SCALLOG solution, ‘particularly appreciated by employees’, contributes to their ‘well-being from head to toe’ and to their commitment.
It goes even further, as part of DISPEO’s inclusive approach to reducing work-related fatigue and preventing MSD (Musculoskeletal Disorders), DISPEO is dedicated to employees with physical limitations and/or restricted mobility.
Following the audit carried out by SCALLOG in January 2023, DISPEO’s Evreux warehouse plans to overhaul its organisation and picking processes in the coming months, taking stock consolidation a step further. In the SCALLOG zone, it plans to broaden the scope of stocked items in terms of size and rotation class.
Anthony Herouard, Logistics Team Leader at DISPEO, adds: “Our aim is also to achieve further productivity gains, and to reach 200 to 220 picks per hour.”
Guillaume Frant, Marketing Director at DISPEO concludes: “The scalability of the Goods to Person solution, coupled with SCALLOG’s ability to listen, ensures that we have a ‘tailor-made’ automation solution to meet our customers’ expectations, supported by a committed partner who is with us for the long term in our development.”
