Auto sortation is music to HMV's ears
April 1st 2007

A new sortation system designed and installed by systems integrator SDI Greenstone for HMV's e-fulfilment distribution centre in Guernsey is automatically dispatching 40,000 items daily, and this number is set to grow significantly in 2007.

The packing and sortation system has been designed to deliver items bagged by postcode for collection by the Guernsey Post Office.

Comprising four packing machines with an SDI Greenstone 120-dropstation sorter and an induction conveyor system, the installation streamlines dispatch of purchases made through HMV's hmv.co.uk online store.

"The brief that we gave the SDI Greenstone designers was to devise a process which eliminates manual product handling," said Gideon Lask, HMV ECommerce Director. "This is exactly what we now have.

Once the products are fed into the packaging system they don't need to be handled again until the mailbags are sorted at the destination depots." HMV's package and dispatch operation had previously been extremely labour-intensive with products being handled several times through the process. Products were hand-picked, manually packaged and labelled before being manually handled once again by operatives sorting them by postcode and then placing them into mailbags. The new automated system can pack and sort products at a rate of 6,000 pieces per hour.

More articles from SDI Group UK Limited: