WITRON presents BOS system to international audience

Numerous food retail logistics experts from Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Scandinavia convinced themselves of the capability of the newly developed Box Order System (BOS) in the course of an “Expert Day” at WITRON’s headquarters in Parkstein (Upper Palatinate), Germany. “With BOS, we consistently continue our successful end-to-end strategy: End-to-end within the entire supply chain from the supplier to the customer. End-to-end from the development of an innovative solution through to the complete system operation. And end-to-end with regards to interfaces – person-machine-processes”, according to Jack Kuypers, WITRON Vice President North Western Europe.

The patented solution, which, according to industry experts, is going to set new standards in the handling of totes and cardboard boxes within the fruit & vegetable and perishable environment, was presented to a general public in live operation in the course of the “International BOS Day” on September 22, 2015. Diverting practical presentations framed the event.

After the guests had been welcomed by WITRON founder, Walter Winkler, and a company presentation held by the CEO, Helmut Prieschenk, Karl Hoegen (Vice President WITRON USA) explained the development of the BOS: Starting with the requirements of the market, over the motivation for the development until the final status, and through to realization. In the course of the following live presentation, presented in detail by Jack Kuypers, the guests were given an insight into the material flow and the functionalities of the BOS. Considering the focal points “numbers, data, facts”, Jack Kuypers also explained the planned realization according to an example of a European food retailer. Open questions were answered in detail. The Expert Day was completed by Christian Dietl (CEO WITRON Services) who presented tailor-made service models during his speech, as well as by Stefan Mueller (Vice President of Operations, IFCO Systems) who talked about the “efficient symbiosis of a highly dynamic logistics automation and professional pool tote management” with focus on the perishable area.

Short description of the Box Order System (BOS)
The patented BOS has a modular design. Every module consists of one replenishment crane and four picking cranes – the so-called Box Picking Machines (BPM). After the receiving process, the single-item tote box stacks are separated from the receiving pallet and then directly stored into the pick front through the replenishment cranes. The special feature: The store-friendly tote picking is done highly dynamically by means of the newly developed BPM crane. The BPM was designed in a way that its light-weight telescopic fork doesn’t lift, but embraces the totes or stacks. The advantage: Not only single crates, but also a number of load carriers adapted to the customer order – that means full tote stacks, partial stacks, or single stacks – can be removed in a completely flexible manner from the rack. During the transportation to the next pick position, they are directly consolidated to store-friendly units without errors using the stacker crane. Finally, the built dispatch units are automatically palletized, stretch-wrapped, and provided for dispatch as double-decker pallet just before shipping. BOS is able to fully automatically store and pick either totes or cardboard boxes, and beverage crates. Compared to a conventional warehouse logistics, the BOS convinces with its cost-effectiveness, efficiency, flexibility, and ergonomics – branch-overlapping.