2024 11 VCM

PARTNERINFORMATIE

Automation for 100 million consumers

The revolution in food retail logistics began in Parkstein in 2003. Today, the OPM system is the world’s most successful fully automated logistics and order picking system for cases. It all started with a cake lifter.

T he story of WITRON’s Order Picking Machinery system (OPM) begins at Walter Winkler’s coffee table. The breakthrough came with a cake and a cake server from the WITRON foun der. The COM - the heart of the OPM system was born. Just as a cake lifter glides under the piece of cake, the COM moves under the items to be picked and uses them to load pallets and roll containers for the food retailers’ stores fully automatically, product-gently, store-friendly, and without errors. The OPM system celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2023. Almost 100 OPM systems are in operation today, supplying more than 35,000 stores and 100 million consumers in North America, Europe, and Australia every day. Revolution in food retail logistics Helmut Prieschenk, CEO of WITRON, and Karl Högen, CEO of WITRON North America, agree that the OPM was a revolution for the food retail industry. “That was Walter Winkler’s mas terpiece”, says Prieschenk. “The pilot customer and the impetus for the development of the OPM system came via the food retailer KRO GER from the US.” But the Europeans quickly followed. The first OPM logistics centers in Europe were built for MERCADONA in Spain

and EDEKA in Germany. The initial situation is hardly any different to today. “For many retai lers, issues such as lack of personnel and high staff fluctuation were already a major chal lenge in their conventional warehouses back then”, says Högen. “Not surprising”, according to Helmut Prieschenk. “Millions of tons of food were moved by human hands. Employees had to bend down, lift, and carry heavy loads. That is already challenging and no fun in the dry

food sector - and even less so in the fresh and frozen food environment.” “The pallet is built store-friendly - individually according to the layout of the respective store. It only needs to be handled once in the store. It can directly be used to replenish the shelves or is sent to the back room”, explains Högen. In addition, there is less food waste due to damaged goods during transportation or unpacking. Thanks to new packaging technologies in the OPM sys

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