Automated material handling systems supplier, Beumer Group, has won a contract with Norwegian CEP firm Helthjem to provide an automated solution for its new parcel terminal in the south of Norway, helping the firm combat labour shortages and improve service levels.
Helthjem, which Beumer describes as a “relative newcomer to the Norwegian express parcel delivery business,” was founded in 2015 and originally specialised in newspaper distribution. It has since built up an extensive network that has enabled it to expand its business to cover the express delivery of parcels.
The company currently handles 16 million parcels per year, with the ability to offer a 12-hour delivery time to 50% of the Norwegian population.
Helthjem’s contract with Beumer represents the first time it has introduced automated sortation. The automated system will be installed in Helthjem’s new parcel terminal in Vestby in the South of Norway, which consists of a production hall of approximately 12,000 sqm, plus an office department with support and administration functions.
Handling with care
Beumer’s system will be designed to handle 50 million parcels per year and will help Helthjem combat labour shortages, as the design includes automatic cage tippers and singulation of parcels that make Helthjem less dependent on having a large team of operators to manually place each parcel correctly.
The Beumer system will take care of most of the handling, from the moment parcels are emptied into the system until they are sorted for further optimised distribution. It will limit manual handling, reducing the number of touch points from four to five for every parcel to only once for some of them. This will have a huge effect on speed and accuracy of throughput, Beumer noted.
The system will open in the summer of 2023. It will initially have an operational capacity of 15,000 parcels per hour, with the ability to expand built into the design. Return on investment is expected in less than two years.
“Automation journey”
Lars Beier Madsen, Sales Director for Beumer Group’s Logistics Systems said: “We are pleased to join Helthjem at the beginning of their automation journey. The flexibility we offer with our systems is a perfect fit for their expanding business model. The ability to expand and adjust the system makes the investment future proof.”
Speaking about the benefits of the new system, Helthjem’s Anders Lunde Angen, Director for E-commerce, added: “This is our first venture into automation after years of purely manual operation, but any concerns we had were eased by the high level of competence shown by the Beumer team. The system will enable us to expand our offering rapidly and we anticipate a reasonably fast ROI.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic we saw the consumer-to-consumer sector grow by 500% and we continue to believe in the growth of e-commerce – and even more in the consumer-to-consumer business, for which we offer no-fuss delivery door-to-door by means of nothing but a handwritten code,” he added.
