German express operator trans-o-flex has extended its infrastructure with the opening of a new EUR12.5 million regional sorting centre in central Germany. About 100 new jobs have been created
at the site.The new sorting centre at Alzenau in Lower Franconia, which opened for business on April 2,is located on a 37,000 sqm site right beside the A45 motorway, and offers rapid connections to themain north-south and east-west motorways.
Thanks to an innovative Y-shape, the building offers 20-30% more docking gates than atraditional rectangular building would, and can be easily extended, trans-o-flex said. The 8,000sqm sorting area could be extended by a further 900 sqm, and the number of docking gates could growfrom 100 to 132.
“Now we can sort more goods in the available time and further improve the efficiency of thewhole trans-o-flex network,” says Wolfgang Weber, Head of Operations at trans-o-flex.
The interior space is also used optimally: the state-of-the-art sorting system with acapacity of 8,000 parcels per hour is mostly located 4 metres above the floor. Only the infeed andend points are at floor level. This frees up space, making it possible for forklifts to drive underthe sorting system – distances covered in sorting palleted goods are shortened and the amount ofstorage space is increased.
