BEUMER Group provides technology for new UK Royal Mail hub

Intralogistic solutions provider BEUMER Group has been chosen by Royal Mail to design the technology for its new fully automated parcel super-hub in Warrington, northern England.

Located between Manchester and Liverpool, the site is scheduled to be fully operational by early 2022. It will be the size of four-and-a-half football pitches and, once complete, handle 800,000+ parcels per day.

To achieve the desired levels of parcel sortation Royal Mail specified widespread use of automation at the hub. It turned to BEUMER Group to provide the technology required to do this.

Simon Barker, National Operations Director Royal Mail, commented: “We have seen a major rise in parcel demand over the past few years. Speeding up the passage of parcels within our system through automated sorting technology is key to boosting Royal Mail’s parcel processing capacity.

“BEUMER Group’s know-how has been instrumental in providing the flawless integration of this new technology into our existing network.”

The smoothness of the parcel handling process is made possible by the complete system interface between the new system being provided by BEUMER and Royal Mail's existing business logic. The result is a highly dynamic operation that allows instant updates to many parts of the system, such as the automatic allocation of chutes, thereby optimising the overall use of floor space.

The majority of the parcels will enter the hub in roll cages. Automated tippers will then tip inbound parcels from these onto a conveyor to enable singulation and sortation to take place. Roll cages prepared for dispatch will, in turn, be taken to outbound vehicles for loading.

Deploying a very high degree of automation enables the hub to rightly claim to be at the leading edge of operating ergonomics, while health and safety aspects are also positively impacted due to very little manual handling, enabling Royal Mail staff to be reassigned to other tasks.