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Asda Direct is the e-Commerce branch
of the UK subsidiary of Walmart. While
selling online since 2010, Asda Direct
recognized in 2013 that it needed to
catch up quicker to a fast growing
market where today high street
brands as well as pure players are
competing hard. The focus was placed
on general merchandizers, a retail
business with traditionally a difficult
logistics because of the wide variety of
products in size, shape, and price.
At this time Asda Direct was fulfilling
e-Commerce general merchandises
orders manually in a warehouse
located in Ollerton, Yorkshire and
operated by the 3PL Clipper. Picking
was done by pickers maneuvering
a pallet through the inventory, and
packing was made manually on
numerous isolated packing benches
with packers deciding the parcel type,
whether a box, a sack, an envelope, or
a bubble wrap bundle. Finished parcels
were then placed again on pallets and
routed to the shipping area.
The decision from Asda was to
make a reasonable investment in the
Ollerton DC in a short period and
to keep Clipper as the 3PL. Asda
Direct opted first for a new WMS
that was implemented in 2013, and
then selected a turnkey system from
the integrator Axiom due to address
the speed and quality issues of the
bottleneck of the warehouse, the
packing area. The decision to focus
on packing operations was driven by
the metrics indicating that 60% of the
fulfillment costs were concentrated
in the packing area, these costs
consisting of operations, packaging
materials, and indirectly transport.
The system designed by Axiom is
based on a multiple major changes:
boxes as the shipping container for
most orders, direct picking in the
shipping container, and packaging
automation from B+ Equipment for box
making and box closing. Asda Direct
and B+ Equipment worked together on
the shop floor to define three box sizes
capturing over 90% of the orders while
keeping corrugated costs low. The box
type promoted by B+ Equipment is the
Fefco 0453 tray + lid that suits best
B2C fulfillment speed
the box by gluing a corrugated lid. The
boxes are then labelled by on-the-fly
ship label applicators and routed to the
shipping area. The two I-Pack Machine
define the capacity of the entire system
at 12 000 boxes per 8-hour shift.
The I-Pack Machines are fitted with
the double extended blank feeder
that makes it possible to process two
differently printed lids on the same line.
Each box entering the I-Pack Machine
is scanned and the WMS indicates
what lid to apply for each box. Asda
uses this unique B+ feature to apply
the Asda branded lids as well as the
sponsored lid when appropriate.
The system has went live in October
2014, only eight months after Asda
Direct switched the green light
on to suppliers. The system went
immediately and successfully through
Q4 with peak days at 5 000 boxes
in 8-hours. After a couple of months
operations, Asda Direct was able to
confirm that the system was meeting
its expected performances for picking
and packing productivity, packaging
material costs, and positive customer
impact. As says Nathan Bower, Asda
Direct Project Manager.“
to order fulfillment, including the B+’
specific SuperEco version for the deep
boxes.
The orders are launched in a central
location where empty trays with no
upper flaps are matched to orders and
loaded on custom designed trolleys
carrying twelve orders. This procedure
is possible thanks to the WMS
recording the SKU dimensions, cubing
orders, and calculating the smallest
box size. Pickers push the trolleys
through the inventory and pick with the
assistance of RF guns. When picking
is complete, the trays are unloaded on
the packing loop located on the ground
floor. The loop includes QC packing
benches where the trays can be routed
or not according to the QC strategy
programmed in the WMS.
These packing benches make it
possible to perform multiple quality-
oriented end-of-line tasks. Then the
trays are automatically reduced and
sealed by two I-Pack Machines. The
I-Pack solution consists in measuring
the height of the products inside the
box through a mechanical sensor
providing 100% accuracy, in reducing
the box height to the exact height of
the products simply by creasing and
folding the corrugated, and by sealing
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Logistics Business Magazine | November 2015
PACKAGING AUTOMATION