Bolloré and LVMH to open automated e-commerce facility in Singapore

Bolloré Logistics Singapore is teaming up with luxury-goods purveyor LVMH to build and operate a facility featuring automated warehousing solutions that the logistics company says will improve throughput by tenfold and cut labor hours by 50 percent. The facility is on track to open in early 2018.

For US$7.24 million, Bolloré and LVMH get a 20,000 square meter, high-tech automated facility featuring a 12,000 tote multi-shuttle system from Dematic that “represents a number of industry firsts both in Singapore and in the region” in terms of technical innovation, said Michael Bradshaw, director for Dematic SEA, which is supplying automation technology, software and services.

Collectively designed by Bolloré Logistics, LVMH, and Dematic, the multi-shuttle system and picking technology are some of the latest tech being deployed across supply chain operations. Bolloré maintains that these developments are especially timely in light of “new challenges arising from the emergence of e-commerce and increase of future distribution channels globally.”

Warehousing technology in the new warehouse will automatically prepare e-commerce orders with “a high level of accuracy,” while reducing the time to market, “thus increasing its agility and capacity to absorb peak level of activity.” That translates into warehousing operations that require only half the manpower, Bolloré said.

“Working closely together with Bolloré Logistics, we have developed an innovative automated solution that will bring tremendous improvements in productivity, accuracy and space efficiency,” explained Dematic’s Bradshaw.