Food retailing moved with intelligence
Bremen, Germany: a former coffee warehouse is where the logistics center of the new generation food retailer is located. The eCommerce specialist, myEnso lets customers decide on the line of goods to be placed on the shelves. Following the cooperative principle, the consumer directly participates in the business policies. Sustainable use of resources and working with local suppliers are essential to the philosophy of myEnso. To ensure intelligent warehousing and efficient goods delivery to the consumers, myEnso chose the Intralogistics specialists from Grenzebach. To be taken seriously as an online food retailer featuring 20,000+ items, comparable to a traditional grocery store, automation systems are critical to make the operations economically successful. The goods-to-man principle, the free scalability of up to 100,000 items as well as the straightforward installation into an existing environment, such as the former coffee warehouse convinced myEnso. “myEnso stands for a highly innovative and sustainable trade approach. We appreciate the opportunity to contribute our expertise and ideas at the very start of this journey”, says Uwe Dopf, Head of the Business Unit Intralogistics at Grenzebach.
Traveling smart at the coffee warehouse
For the Intralogistics premiere in the food sector, Grenzebach developed, supplied and commenced operation of a pilot system. The goods-to-man principle is executed with the Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) type L600. They can travel beneath shelves with groceries and cosmetics, five L600 travel at high speed with 30 mobile goods carriers to the so-called "star gates" where personnel boxes up the products.
Intralogistics – sustainable and self-learning
“It’s important to us to be able to use an already existing building as our logistics center. Grenzebach is critical in revitalizing the historic coffee warehouse step by step”, says Maximilian Müller, Senior Project Manager Logistics at myEnso. The Automated Guided Vehicles establish the individual logistics processes for the coffee warehouse to meet the necessary requirements. Within the revitalization Grenzebach is in charge of the entire infrastructure for the L600 fleet, including the charge management. Trial and error: start small before scaling for bigger projects. This basic principle at myEnso also applies to Intralogistics in Überseestadt Bremen. Following live tests with the five L600 vehicles, we can proceed to the engineering of modules with 30 to 40 vehicles, creating a blueprint for a system which can be used on various levels of the building. "myEnso stands for sustainable logistics and we are happy to prove our technical know-how and project experience", says Uwe Dopf. At myEnso, the future goal is to have more than 70 percent of the goods movements facilitated with the use of AGVs. In order to keep transportation routes as short as possible, goods which are frequently bought together, are placed in close proximity, meaning coffee next to sugar next to milk next to the milk frother. While the customers participate in the business choosing preferred goods, the system continuously gains knowledge.
Starting 2019 available throughout Germany
As an online market place for groceries and a one-stop-shop for grocery store items, myEnso has been a meeting point for customers and manufacturers since 2016. The care facilities of the Convivio Group have supplied groceries to myEnso since 2017. Products are available to the Bremer Pioniere (members of the cooperative association) since spring 2018. Starting in 2019, www.myenso.de opens for customers throughout Germany. The logistics center will be located at the Bremen Speicherhof, renovated in cooperation with Grenzebach, the Bremer company Vollers and the MR PlanFabrik.
