Austrian Post shipped a record number of 429,026 parcels on Tuesday (December 17) and hasimplemented Vanderlande’s sorting and conveyor system at its new distribution centre in Linz, Upper
Austria, to better cope with rising volumes, especially in the current Christmas period.The postal operator said that modern technology and its employees’ efforts contributed to theremarkable result which will go into the company’s history with the highest number of parcels everdelivered on a single day. Austrian Post’s parcel volumes keep growing in the run-up to Christmasfrom the daily average of around 250,000 parcels to about 350,000 shipped on a daily basis over thelast few weeks.
“Until now, these figures wouldn’t even have been possible. Thanks to our investments in newtechnology and new distribution centres, for example in the north of Vienna or in Hall, Tirol, weare now able to handle these volumes. And through the enormous effort of our employees, this newpotential is being fully exploited,” Peter Umundum, Austrian Post board member and director forParcels & Logistics, said.
Austrian Post added that it could set further records in volume terms in the next few days asshoppers increasingly turn to the internet for their Christmas purchases and retailers rely on thepostal operator to get the products delivered. “Therefore, a new best figure in December ispossible, and a new annual record is almost certain,” Umundum concluded.
With the company’s technical capacities being no longer sufficient to keep up with the risingvolumes, especially from Germany to Austria, the new distribution centre at Allhaming, close toLinz, has been equipped with the POSISORTER system by Vanderlande Industries. The €50 millionfacility near Linz has been designed to process 1.6 million letters and 100,000 parcels everyday.
Vanderlande Industries claimed that its automated sorting and conveyor system for lettercontainers and letter bundles is an essential component of the new logistics centre. The POSISORTERis a horizontal-running, high-speed sorter conveyor with wide, extruded aluminium carriers. It hasthe capacity to sort up to 6,000 totes and bundles every hour.
The technology has already been introduced at other Austrian Post facilities in Salzburg,Wolfurt and Graz and has been used with success for many years, according to Eric Fegers, SalesEngineer at Vanderlande Industries in Mönchengladbach.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the new logistics centre took place in the beginning of Augustthis year. The facility is due to become fully operational in September 2014.
