Finalists for the Parcel and Postal Technology International Awards 2022 have been announced and Asendia UK is delighted to up for the Sorting and Fulfilment Technology Award.
This category looks at how the industry is improving the efficiency and quality of mail and parcel handling through new solutions, such as automation, bulk handling, OCR, and sorting centre management as well as robotics and AMRs.
What has Asendia done to earn this recognition?
In an industry first, Asendia UK has successfully installed automated sorting and six new robots for over-labelling at its parcel processing centre at Heathrow, fully operational from the end of May 2022. You can watch a video of it in action here.
The system has vastly boosted parcel throughput for our clients – e-commerce retailers, brands and marketplaces - achieving a rate of up to 7,200 parcels per hour. Asendia UK has invested £2.5m of CAPEX in these improvements, and is already seeing a host of benefits to the business.
- An industry first – robotic parcel over-labelling and automated parcel sortation
- Multi-million-pound investment speeds up package processing, provides improved accuracy
- Six robots can label 7,200 parcels per hour, preparing them for outbound shipment
- Multi-carrier selections available, accessing both postal and commercial global networks
- Automated inline weight, dimensions and photo capture introduced for every package
- Sorting and routing can be designed at customer level based on a wide variety of criteria to ensure tailor-made bespoke customer-led network options
- Increases overall hub capacity; future proofing for further future growth in e-commerce to support leading UK retailers
- Reduces the parcel manual handling from 3x to 1x, and getting a parcel ready for despatch as quickly as within 2 minutes of arrival to the hub
“The successful launch of our new automated parcels hub is the culmination of a very complex project. The team worked incredibly hard to get this up and running and I’m proud of all involved. We have future-proofed our core Heathrow facility for some years to come, to further grow with our e-commerce retailers and build on the successes of the past few years."
Simon Batt Asendia UK CEO
How does this benefit online retailers?
Asendia's ability to process parcels quickly and accurately helps get them on their way to shoppers as soon as possible, with more capacity to handle peak periods too. Weight, dimensions and routing/sorting are managed automatically which reduces room for error that manual processing allows.
- Asendia’s investment in automation and robotic over-labelling will increase the Heathrow site’s facility capacity, and speed up parcel processing allowing for earlier flights and road haulage departures.
- Peak trading, typically in the run up to Christmas, will be easier to manage, with less risk of delays to parcel processing.
- Asendia can now access valuable data, collected by the automated system and its photographic elements, to help improve service levels, spot problems and forecast more accurately.
- Asendia will gain competitive advantage by offering retail clients a state of the art, high-tech service, unique in the marketplace today. Several big brand names have already signed up to use the facility.
- Having volumetrics for all parcels will help with revenue protection and better control of sizing, which is a key driver within distribution networks. Equally, having photos of all parcels is a very good security benefit.
When will the winners be announced?
The 2022 winners will be announced during a live awards ceremony at Parcel+Post Expo, which takes place October 18-20, 2022, in Frankfurt, Germany. For more information and to register for the event, visit: www.parcelandpostexpo.com/en/
Video of our automation
Watch a video of our parcel processing automation in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkeTrfTZ8dA&t=2s
