Varner Group, a leading retailer of fashion brands in Scandinavia, has awarded an automation contract worth some £36 million to Swisslog.
This is for a major DC development in Sweden which Swisslog will kit out and operate, and it forms part of a strategic repositioning for the retailer, which intends to source and consolidate its logistics operations from six third-party warehouses.
The Varner Group, based in Norway, is a leading and fast growing fashion retailer with a turnover of €1,250m and more than 1,380 stores throughout Scandinavia, Finland, Germany, Iceland and Poland.
The storage volume of the DC amounts to 40,000 pallet locations in a high-bay warehouse, 330,000 dynamic locations in the mini-load system as well as 60,000 bins in an autos store system for small parts. Integration of the material handling systems is due to start in April 2015 and hand-over to the customer is foreseen for summer 2016.
“We were looking for a scalable, cost efficient, ergonomic and green solution,” explains Anders Eriksson, head of logistics at Varner Retail AB. “Swisslog’s innovative solution design was the final convincing factor.”
