AUTOMATION/SMART FACTORY PRIME VISION
Prime Vision robots help Babydump take
With 134 million babies born globally in 2023, demand for baby products is high. This birth rate, combined with the rise of e-commerce, has forced suppliers to rapidly expand
T
o alleviate its growing pains, Babydump, a leading European retailer of baby products, automated its order picking
operations at Sint-Oedenrode in the Netherlands to increase throughput and sustainability.
facility, it relies on 12 autonomous guided robots (AGRs) from Prime Vision.
A BABY BOOM FOR BUSINESS Babydump is part of the FTH group and was founded in the 1970s as a retailer of baby products. It’s now market leader in its segment with a thriving online operation and 14 stores throughout the Netherlands and Belgium. The business offers baby rooms, prams, car seats, buggies, high chairs, baby clothing and many more baby essentials. Experiencing rapid growth and looking to meet new environmental legislation, Babydump sustainability of its order picking operations. At its site in Sint-Oedenrode, online orders and stock deliveries for its stores were picked manually by employees.
OPTIMISING PICKING AND PACKAGING Having reached the limits of this set up, Babydump installed an automatic storage and retrieval system (ASRS) from Autostore to streamline the process. The ASRS holds 15,000 employees travelling along the racks, the system delivers the correct items for each order directly to a picking station, allowing workers to easily pack products.
With regards to sustainability, Babydump
worked on optimising its packaging. Instead of relying on standard box sizes that rarely matched the volume of the shipment, the company purchased two box erector machines. These produce two different types of boxes, which once packed by employees at the picking station, with a lid by box closing machines. This minimises wasted space and improves sustainability. The order then travels via chutes to the conveyors, which sort it for dispatch to a particular store, route or delivery service.
22 June 2024 Irish Manufacturing
MAKING THE RIGHT MOVES Prime Vision robots have a 35 kg carrying capacity and a 50 x 70cm loading surface, ready to carry a wide variety of boxes. Using light detection and ranging (LIDAR) for guidance and safety, the robots can travel without QR markers or metal productivity. Smoothly travelling at between 0.8 to 1.1 m/s,
correct destinations.
ROBOTS CONNECT THE DOTS However, the success of the system relied on machines, picking stations, conveyors and chutes. There were other complications too. Beyond the ASRS, prams and other non-machinable products that can’t be handled by automation needed to Furthermore, the facility handles both online and store orders. Supporting 14 physical locations as well as e-commerce customers added more complexity. Clearly, static conveyors would be unable to accommodate these multiple demands,
The robots have been operating at Sint- Oedenrode since the start of 2024. As well as facilitating the movement of items, the robots for stores.
With a battery life of over 10 hours, each robot covers multiple shifts, while the interchangeable batteries can be fully charged within 2 to 3 hours. For maintenance, Prime spare robots ready for rapid deployment to reduce downtime.
ORDER PICKING OPERATIONS REBORN
Since the system has gone live, Babydump has recorded a 400 to 500% improvement in the productivity of its order pickers. This increased throughput has meant the company can comfortably meet rising demand. As well as simplifying order picking for
employees, it has also reduced errors and returns, saving costs, lowering emissions and improving customer satisfaction. Meanwhile, optimised packaging has saved space and materials, enhancing sustainability at Babydump. Prime Vision these successes.
www.irish-manufacturing.com
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