Geesthacht Red robot trolleys roll over a grid of aluminum rails as if controlled by magic. They almost whiz past each other, one of them seems to have decided to take a turn and then stops. The vehicle, which is a good meter long, is already lowering a gripping device on two steel belts – and seconds later, transporting a gray plastic box filled with gluten-free rolls upstairs.
These boxes are stacked 5.40 meters high in the automated dispatch warehouse of the online retailer Foodoase in Geesthacht near Hamburg. For founder Sandra Neuber, who sells products for people with food intolerances, the computer-controlled system is one of the keys to economic success.
“Cost efficiency is essential in the food trade. With average prices of three euros per item, we can’t give away a cent, ”says the entrepreneur. Compared to the previous warehouse, where people put the items on trolleys and had to cover long distances, the technology saves up to ten employees.
Automatic warehouses are not only the key to success at Foodoase. Automation could also be the driver behind the new, fast grocery delivery services that are currently in a losing race for customers in the larger cities. The Gorillas delivery service alone is said to burn one million euros every day to deliver supermarket items within just ten minutes, observers speculate.
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Investors who are willing to take risks in such start-ups are hoping for the expected economies of scale – in terms of purchasing power, but also in terms of automation successes. One day, companies are supposed to work so efficiently that they generate decent profits.
The delivery services save space and personnel with the robot warehouse.
(Photo: Foodoase)
While delivery robots suitable for everyday use are a long time coming, automatic systems are now also ready for the market for medium-sized warehouses. “A few years ago it was said that with annual sales of less than 100 million euros from a warehouse, there was no need to think about automation. That has changed radically, ”says Joachim Kieninger from the system manufacturer Elementlogic.
He sells the system from the manufacturer Autostore, which was founded in Norway in 1996. Other sales partners are making the solution popular in the industry – such as Swisslog from Switzerland, which is currently equipping a warehouse with the technology for the organic retailer Rapunzel.
According to Kieninger, an investment of half a million euros is at least necessary for the Autostore solution in a small version – depending on the number of robot trolleys used. The customer Foodoase, which has an annual turnover of seven million euros, saves a lot of rent for space: In the old warehouse, the goods were mostly in aisles accessible at ground level – that cost almost ten times as much space.
Another advantage of the system: because the robots – at Foodoase there are 19 – are independent of each other, the warehouse will continue to work even if one of the devices fails.
The system pays for itself after three years
Entrepreneur Neuber expects three years until the system pays off for her company. This is much more efficient for them than hiring an external service provider. “Before moving the warehouse, we put out a large tender. But we couldn’t have afforded the offers in the grocery store, ”she says. In addition, Foodoase has greater control – for example when checking incoming goods and the quality of delivery.
The system solves another problem: “It is not easy to find reasonable people who want to do warehouse work,” says Neuber. The robot carts transport the plastic boxes to the workstations where people remove or refill individual products. In the course of time, the chaotic warehousing sorts itself out: Frequently requested products move up. This optimizes the runtimes. After all, the 19 employees in Geesthacht pack 400 to 700 parcels a day.
Less manpower is also a main argument in favor of automation at the Knuspr delivery supermarket, which started in Munich. Unlike Flink and Gorillas, Knuspr does not deliver within minutes, but as quickly as three hours. Deliveries are made throughout Munich from a 7800 square meter warehouse in the Garching suburb. Employees there are currently still collecting the goods and placing them on conveyor belts that bring more than 1000 shopping bags to the shelves for the drivers every day. In Garching alone, 192 people are currently working in the warehouse.
Few new hires will be necessary for the targeted further growth: Elementlogic is now building a solution similar to that at Foodoase at Knuspr in Garching. Five million euros are available for this. The parent company Rohlik from Prague has reserved a total of 400 million euros for the automation. Half of that goes to Germany.
It is not about laying off employees, but about being able to grow faster, emphasizes Knuspr logistics manager Björn Wolf. A third fewer people are needed in the warehouse – also at the planned future locations in Frankfurt, Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia.
This is only the first step: Wolf is already working on concepts for the automated processing of frozen goods and dairy products. “It only becomes very difficult with fruit and vegetables, where regular visual inspections have to take place,” he says.
Hellofresh is pushing the order times
This is also a challenge for the cook box mail order company Hellofresh, where a large part of the content is vegetables. The newcomer to the DAX plans to invest hundreds of millions of euros in the automation of the 25 fulfillment centers worldwide over the next few years, says CEO Dominik Richter. “This will make our product significantly better – and at the same time we can shorten order times,” he says.
New systems made it possible to offer customers more different dishes to choose from. “So automation is a big part of our strategy,” says the manager.
The plans for the express delivery services are not yet as concrete. Delivery Hero boss Niklas Östberg has already announced that he wants to use the opportunities offered by automation in the future. But the Dax group, which is expanding its supermarket delivery service under the Foodpanda brand, is silent on request about specific plans, as is gorillas.
Because while the market-ready solution from Autostore is suitable for delivery services with larger central warehouses, the express delivery services rely on a concept known in the industry jargon as “quick commerce”: They rent many very small warehouses – such as abandoned bank branches – from which they only access the immediate vicinity supply. This enables them to deliver within seven to 30 minutes of receiving the order.
There is still no standard solution for automating such small warehouses, which are more reminiscent of a corner shop. Today’s offers are simply too big and too expensive.
Munich tinkerers are working on the nano-warehouse
The young Munich company Noyes promises a remedy. So far, however, his solution only exists as a prototype in the start-up office. The founders use a similar principle as car store with many stacked boxes, but on a smaller scale. You also want to automate 30 square meter warehouses – the ideal size for quick commerce.
Noyes founder Aaron Spiegelburg names names: He was already in conversation with the Gorillas technical director when the company was founded in January 2021, he says. There are also contacts to Delivery Hero’s Asia headquarters in Singapore. The aim is to set up the first two systems for a fast delivery service in the first quarter of 2021. The promise: With costs of around 400,000 euros, such a small system should pay for itself for the operator after just one year.
Spiegelburg calculates that the operation of a classic neighborhood warehouse devours 450,000 euros a year. Its automatic solution should get by with significantly fewer staff and a fifth of the space. In a few months, he wants to supply an initial test customer with two devices that are to be assembled from standard parts.
He wants to accommodate around 2,000 products in the system, some of which are cooled. He hopes that the team, which currently comprises 38 people, will be able to supply additional customers with 50 devices each next summer. So far, he has collected 3.2 million euros from venture capitalists.
However, logistics expert Helge König from the EY consultancy is skeptical as to whether automated mini-warehouses are actually the right solution for providers such as Gorillas and Flink. “In the business model, putting the goods together takes significantly less time than delivering them. Therefore, the big levers for more efficiency are more in dynamic route planning and optimization, ”he says.
Unlike in larger warehouses such as Knuspr, a technician cannot be on site everywhere with the super-fast delivery services to quickly rectify faults – and tasks such as refilling the system still had to be carried out.
The Noyes solution would have to prove its suitability. The plant in Geesthacht, on the other hand, has had its acid test behind it: Owner Neuber raves about its expensive acquisition.
More: Why there are still no delivery robots rolling through the cities.