At the La Bovida site in Bourges, the HEFED Group and partners, Stöcklin are setting new benchmarks in online specialist retail for professional cooking and kitchen supplies. The new plant quadruples capacity and enables the availability and speed requirements of the growing e-commerce customer base to be met.
Planning and Implementation of a fully automated high-bay warehouse for small parts and pallets, including conversion from person-to-goods to goods-to-person picking
11-aisle, 23-meter-high high-bay warehouse with 60,000 containers and 6,000 pallet spaces; 6 BOXers RBG for the miniload area, 5 MASTers RBG for the pallet area; integration of picking stations with pick/place-to-light technology
Quadrupling of capacities with stable energy and personnel requirements, expanded range of services for e-commerce segments
Provision of e-commerce-capable logistics for own product range and the stores of other group members, enabling new online customer groups to be Operated; expandable to 90,000 parking spaces
La Bovida is a French specialist wholesaler for professional cooking and kitchen supplies. The company sells over 9,000 articles for 238 brand-name manufacturers and produces a wide variety of high-quality spices and seasoning mixes, sauces, stocks and marinades itself. All products - from small jars, knives, bowls and pot ranges to large carriers and devices for supermarkets, the catering and professional kitchen sectors - are available in stock and from 19 retail outlets in France. 100 years after its foundation, La Bovida joined the HEFED Group, which also includes the spice manufacturer EPICEA and the kitchen utensils specialist TOC. In order to strengthen online retail and reach new target groups in a market-leading way, not only the store concepts but also the logistics behind this segment were restructured from the ground up to make them e-commerce-ready.
At the La Bovida site in Bourges, central France, a state-of-the-art, 23 m high, fully automated high-bay warehouse with almost 60,000 container and 6,000 pallet storage positions was built in 2022 on 4,200 m² - four times the previous capacity, with an option to expand to a total capacity of 90,000 storage positions. A total of 11 Aisles are currently working with 6 storage and retrieval units for small parts and 5 for pallets from the BOXer and MASTer series from Stöcklin Logistik AG. They implemented transport orders at high speed, which are generated in a time and energy-optimized manner via the intelligent material flow and system control software. In addition, there are 1,500 m² for goods receiving and loading ramps. Up to 185 Euro standards pallets and up to 800 boxes can be stored and retrieved here per hour via 800 m transport systems for pallets and containers. Height-adjustable picking stations with innovative pick-by-light technology have replaced the previous picking vehicles. They are connected to both the pallet and small parts storage areas. This means that pickers no longer drive through the hall, but await boxes and pallets alike to pick the quantities ordered at their fixed workstation.
"This bearing makes us extremely efficient. In fact, we can maneuver the new capacities and the complexity typical of e-commerce - i.e. composition of significantly more smaller shipments consisting of many individual parts of different sizes with strong fluctuations in demand - with roughly the same workforce and the same Energy Consumption," says Olivier Hennel, President HEFED. "Above all, however, we have more control over stock levels - thanks to the recurring, automatic weighing of pallets and containers with data processing in the goods flow system."
