Beumer Group - Moving parcels as quickly as possible

The DPD Group UK has chosen sorting, distribution and conveyor equipment

from the BEUMER Group for its new superhub in Hinckley:

The international parcel and express service provider DPD has opened a new

superhub in Hinckley in the southwest of Leicestershire, England. The

purpose is to meet the increasing demand for its services and be prepared

for future growth. The new distribution center is able to handle up to

720,000 parcels a day. To achieve this capacity, the company installed

innovative sorting, distribution and conveyor equipment from the BEUMER

Group over a length of three kilometers.

The new Hub 4 of the DPD Group UK just recently went into operation.

BEUMER delivered and installed three BS 25 ET parcel sorters with a total

length of 2,700 meters. It also installed two BS 7 BT sorters totaling 270

meters in length for small items, plus feed-in units with induction lines,

end-point conveyors and two carousel systems for goods that cannot be put

on conveyors. Cameras and scanners with downstream OCR and video coding

reduce the number of no-reads on the sorters to a minimum. In order to

optimally direct material flows, BEUMER equipped the system with the

modular BG software suite. The BG Fusion user interface provides users

with access to all available data without having to switch between

different applications. The interface also includes a comprehensive

statistics package.

Installation and commissioning took only 18 months. Thus DPD was able to

connect the Superhub 4 to its national distribution network almost two

months earlier than agreed in the contract. On its first day of operation

the system sorted 92,000 packages and parcels. The number will go up to

more than 500,000 per shift when the startup phase is completed, making

the hub ready for the peak season at Christmas.

The new Hub 4 is 470 meters long and almost 40 meters wide. There are 264

loading ramps. The sorting equipment is designed so that packages leave

the building three to seven minutes after entering it. Employees in the

outgoing goods area load them manually onto trucks or semitrailers.

Dwain McDonald, CEO of DPD: "Everyone involved contributed to the success

of this project. We have invested systematically in our network. The

superhub will give us plenty of space to expand in the years ahead and

respond to the growing need for our services."

"We are glad to have helped DPD implement its expansion plans in the

English market," says Martin Mossinkoff, director with global

responsibility for the BEUMER Group's Logistics Systems Division. "We've

worked very successfully with the DPD Group UK for ten years and are happy

to have this close business relationship." The BEUMER Group also delivered

and installed sorting and distribution equipment for Hubs 2 and 3.