Following a successful pilot project, GLS has rolled out 70 autonomous sorting robots at its Bielefeld depot in Germany to increase the speed and efficiency of small parcel handling.
The robots can sort items weighing up to 3kg and work in harmony with GLS employees: staff place the packages on the self-propelled automated guided vehicles (AGVs) from Libiao Robotics and the rest runs fully automatically. The robots navigate via a U-shaped sorting table and bring their cargo to the destination within the depot.
The robots enable GLS to serve up to 144 destinations in the same sorting area, up from 50. “This saves valuable time, increases precision and makes our processes noticeably more efficient,” explained Sebastian Nord, depot manager at the Bielefeld location. “For our team, this means above all more ergonomic work and relief. Our ‘ants’, as we call them on the ground, do a lot of work. They are real team players.”
Expansion plans
The extensive test run in Bielefeld is part of GLS Germany’s strategy to make sorting processes more decentralized, finely tuned and cost-efficient, especially for large quantities of shipments. After the successful launch, the robots will be installed at other locations this year, including Dortmund and Neuenstein in East Hesse. The company is also working on automatic loading of the AGVs.
“Depending on the shipment structure and demand, we can flexibly adjust the number of robots – this is an advantage in order to be able to act reliably even at peak times. By combining state-of-the-art technology with the experience of our teams, we create sustainable solutions for a growing shipment volume,” said Nord.