a European grocery distribution center
How a European Grocery DC Raised Picking Lines From 105 to 305 per Hour
A European grocery DC replaced two-floor manual picking with high-bay goods-to-person AMRs, lifting picking lines from 105 to 305 per hour and tightening delivery slots.
- 305
- Pick lines/hr
- 60
- Replen lines/hr
- 40%
- Footprint cut
- 3 hr
- Delivery slots
Based on a documented real-world deployment. Figures are from public reporting; the organization is not named.
Manual picking could not keep the promise
A European grocery distribution center serving home delivery and drive pickup ran ambient fulfillment across two floors. Pickers walked long internal routes, sometimes up to fifteen kilometers per shift, while online volume climbed after the pandemic surge.
Tight local labor markets made those walking heavy roles hard to fill. Leadership needed faster order prep, better stock accuracy, and a smaller storage footprint inside a building that had only opened a few years earlier.
- Two storey manual picking with heavy daily walking
- Growing e commerce volumes and shorter customer delivery windows
- Need to free floor space without expanding the building shell
High bay goods to person on one level
The operator worked with an integration partner to install a dense high bay system with autonomous shuttles that climb racking, retrieve standard totes, and deliver them to fixed pick stations. Floor slabs were reinforced for flatness, and pick stations were configured for four concurrent orders each with light directed sorting into branded outbound totes.
The project consolidated storage from two floors to one automated cube served by dozens of mobile robots that cycle to short charging breaks each hour. Reception, picking, and returns reintegration were centralized so inventory checks could run through the day instead of only during shutdown windows.
- Pour super flat slab and build dense racking for vertical storage
- Deploy a fleet of climbing AMRs serving three pick stations
- Use light directed multi order picking into existing customer totes
- Centralize returns so stock can re enter active inventory faster
Throughput and accuracy after July 2024 go live
Published results after the July 2024 start show picking productivity rising from 105 lines per hour to 305 lines per hour at each station. Replenishment throughput climbed from 25 lines per hour to 60 lines per hour, and the automated storage area occupied about forty percent of the space the manual operation had required.
The site reports capacity to move up to 915 bins per hour across three stations, which supported guaranteed three hour delivery windows for customers. Pickers no longer traverse the building on foot, and returns can be prioritized back into active stock automatically, improving inventory accuracy and order quality.
What US grocery and 3PL leaders can take from it
Service Robot Co. is a full service, OEM neutral commercial robot integrator for US businesses. We compare goods to person AMRs, cart towing bots, and traditional pick paths, then finance, deploy, integrate with your WMS, train staff, and service the fleet through a nationwide engineer network on one contract.
A warehouse robot rental or month to month AMR pilot lets you prove pick rate gains on one aisle or zone before you re slot the whole building. We run a free site assessment, model footprint and labor math honestly, and keep backup units available so peak grocery weekends do not stall on a single failed bot.
