The Belgian technical wholesaler Cebeo has created space for future growth with a groundbreaking distribution centre in Blandain. To manage the complex operation, which includes a high-level of automation, the company relies on Manhattan Active Warehouse Management.
Cebeo is part of Sonepar, the global business-to-business distributor of electrical products. To facilitate future growth within the Belgian market, the company decided to build a brand-new distribution centre in Blandain, Belgium. On a site covering 11.5 hectares, a building of 42,000 square metres at a height of 55 feet has been built. Next to the warehouse, there is a cable park covering an additional 10,000 square metres.
“We carry a very diverse range of more than 50,000 stock-keeping units. The distribution centre is entirely designed to suit our assortment,” says Danny Gotink, VP Supply Chain at Cebeo.
This is reflected in the layout of the distribution centre, where a highly automated goods-to-person system for small goods and cables is combined with a more manual operation for long goods and pallet goods.
“What makes this building so innovative is, on one hand, a smart logistics concept with the right combination of automation and manual operations and, on the other hand, the focus on sustainability and care for our employees,” explains Gotink.
“This is demonstrated, by the reusable plastic containers we use to deliver small goods to our customers. By introducing these containers, we save a million cardboard boxes every year.”
“We have a smart logistics concept with the right combination of automation and manual operations.”
Danny Gotink, VP Supply Chain at Cebeo
Future-proof solution
The distribution centre processes around 10,000 orders daily, which are delivered directly to customers or distributed via one of 53 branches in Belgium. An in-house transportation network with five transport hubs ensures efficient and fast operations. Orders placed before 7pm are ready for transportation overnight. Manhattan Active Warehouse Management has been implemented to manage the entire operation.
Roy Vergeldt, Engagement Director at Manhattan comments: “Cebeo wanted a future-proof solution that would enable it to realise the projected growth for the coming decades. The new warehouse management system needed to support the end-to-end processes in the distribution centre, including automation.
This requires a system rich in standard functionality, flexibly deployable, that can be managed by Cebeo. We took it a step further and developed special functionality for cable cutting at the customer’s request, which we added to our standard WMS. The system implemented here serves as a blueprint for all other Sonepar Group locations. Cebeo has set a new standard within the parent company.”
Roy Vergeldt, Corné Baardemans (Manhattan) and Danny Gotink (Cebeo)
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