By taking a step towards automation, retailers can increase picking productivity and service levels, make efficiency improvements, and reduce operational risks.
Process predictability, a limited CAPEX and a fast ROI are now more important than ever. Taking a first step towards automation (potentially from a standing start) has several proven advantages. Once established, automation can be further fine-tuned to match individual processes inside your DC.
Automated cross-docking solutions such as Vanderlande’s XDOCK are an ideal option. It is particularly effective if you are a food retailer serving over 30 stores (of multiple profiles), providing a large product assortment, and/or focusing on chilled and ambient flows, but have a limited experience with automation.
By facilitating the direct trans-shipment of products to stores on an on-demand basis, XDOCK reduces delivery times. It also improves the quality and completeness of orders, leads to enhanced tracking and tracing, and guarantees more accurate deliveries.
By combining ergonomic infeed stations with Vanderlande’s POSISORTER (sliding shoe sorter), XDOCK efficiently facilitates a stockless operation and can handle a wide range of case types. It also eliminates many traditional handling operations, such as storage.
The height adjustable infeed stations have been designed to minimise heavy lifting, while two operators can work simultaneously, therefore improving productivity. In addition, the POSISORTER offers a high sort accuracy while generating low noise levels.
XDOCK is the perfect blend of past, present and future. Not only will it increase your service levels today, but it’s a system that has proven its reliability and high availability for over 30 years. Alongside that, XDOCK is future-proof and can be easily scaled up to support a growing operation.
One of the key advantages of XDOCK is that it offers a rapid ROI from a relatively low capital investment. A robust solution, it puts you in control through intelligent software. This gives useful insights into the location of a product, right down to the individual load carrier.
For food retailers looking to explore a higher level of automation, Vanderlande can help support you in this transition. With vast experience of implementing cross-dock solutions globally, we are a highly reliable partner and will be by your side for the lifetime of the system.
Learn how XDOCK ensures that you can adapt your material handling system to match the growth of your business in our next blog:
Support your business agility with XDOCK
Our cross-dock solution – XDOCK – provides an effortless way to automate stockless operations. This will help you to reduce delivery times as you directly ship products to stores on an on-demand basis.
Learn moreEvery company and every market is different. This is reflected in the layout of your warehouse. Our warehousing experts are available to offer tailor-made advice about XDOCK.