DPD France (formerly Exapaq) has opened a new regional hub at Sublaines in western France to expand capacity and speed up deliveries.
The sorting hub in Sublaines, close to Tours, has capacity to handle up to 100,000 parcels per day using a high-performance sorting system. It lies 24km from the former smaller facility at Saint-Pierre-des-Corps.
In operation since March after six months of construction, DPD's new ultramodern sorting hub in Sublaines handles the West – South-West – Paris goods flows, thanks to its perfect location near the A85 motorway intersection.
"All of the employees of the Saint-Pierre-des-Corps sorting hub have moved to the new Sublaines site, where they can continue their work in a new space with completely redesigned and upgraded features. We're able to sort around 60,000 parcels here each night, which are then dispatched to 40 or so of our depots," said Yannick Frumin, Director of DPD's Saint-Pierre-des-Corps and Sublaines sites.
Set in a 7-hectare plot with green spaces acquired by DPD France, the hub, with a surface area of 8,000 sqm has a number of major advantages compared to the former facility. The number of loading doors has been increased to 60 from 38, there are 14 unloading bays compared to 10 previously, and staff can use touchscreen technology to manage the parcel flows. There are also various environmentally-friendly features.
Following a call for tender for the automation of processes at its new site, DPD France selected the cross-belt sorting machine from French company Fives Cinetic, the "GENI-belt", designed for automated high speed sorting and handling of parcels of various sizes from 10mm in height upwards and weighing from just a few grams up to 50kg.
The system, managed by Fives Cinetic's WCS Trace software, will also be equipped with 7 high-resolution cameras, allowing for 5-sided parcel identification. In all, 14 input lines are connected in pairs to an injector (7 in total), which feed into the sorting machine with a capacity of 11,000 parcels per hour.
At the output, the goods are then dispatched towards 60 reloading exits, each of which is connected to motorised telescopic loading machinery. Abnormal parcels are detected and automatically transferred from the unloading points on a dedicated carrousel. This greater capacity could be further increased by the extension of this line into an additional adjacent building.
"With this hub, we are laying the foundations for the next 15 years of our activity, with a view to the growth of our e-commerce and private customer segments, for the handling of both small and larger parcels, Frumin added.
DPD France (formerly Exapaq), part of GeoPost's DPDgroup, operates a network of 56 depots and 6 national sorting hubs, and delivers over 59 million parcels a year. The largely B2B delivery companies also offers consumer deliveries to 5,000 Pickup points in France, as well as the Predict interactive delivery service. The company offers DPD CLASSIC Europe and DPD CLASSIC Intercontinental for customers with international shipments.
