Geekplus Technology Co. will be bringing its shelf-to-person system to Alpen’s new 33,000-square-meter e-commerce warehouses in Western Japan. Alpen manufactures and sells sports products and is based in Nagoya, Japan.
Alpen expects its new Inazawa City-based facility to go live in the Spring. The company has already been using 56 flagship Geek+ goods-to-person robots in its Eastern Japan e-commerce center since 2018. As its business grew, Alpen scaled up to 216 robots in the 23,000-square-meter facility.
With the robots, it has achieved four times efficiency improvement and doubled storage capacity. At the same time, Alpen has been able to shorten delivery lead time.
“Due to e-commerce demand, we have launched strategic fulfillment centers in eastern and western Japan, aiming to establish a network capable of fast and efficient supply to the market,” Ryuichi Hamanaka, Alpen’s head of logistics, said in a release. “The mission was not only to decentralize distribution but also to ensure healthy profits in terms of managing cost and productivity.”
Inside the deployment
Alpen was looking for a modular, flexible automation system that could quickly adapt to changes in order flows. It also wanted to take a scaled approach to automation, similar to how it approached its e-commerce center. Alpen said Geek+ checked all of these boxes for them.
“We see Geekplus as a true partner in the evolution of our warehouse automation,” Alpen’s Ryuichi Hamanaka said in a release. “The culture of fast action from proposal to implementation and validation aligns with our company’s corporate culture, and we’re proud to once again partner with Geekplus on our newest e-commerce facility.”
Geek+ says its shelf-to-person system provides high flexibility, easy deployment, and high throughput with a short implementation period. Its customers don’t need to add extra infrastructure for the robots, and they can handle goods of all sizes.
The system works by using Geek+ robots to carry shelves to picking stations. This eliminates the need for workers to walk back and forth across the facility to retrieve items.
Geek+ says it aims to grow with each of its customers at their own pace, enabling sustainable and flexible operations through stable and cost-effective systems, dependable service, and a local team. Alpen says this localization maximizes support for its business objectives and introduces efficiency improvement and service enhancements as its needs evolve.
Earlier this year, ASKUL, an office supply provider, deployed the largest Geek+ PopPick installation in Japan. ASKUL Corp. plans to use more than 318 Geek+ robots once the system is finished. Currently, the installation is more than 70% complete, according to the companies.
