De Bijenkorf - which means "the beehive" - is the most renowned chain of high-quality premium department stores in the Netherlands. Through its retail and e-commerce stores, the company sells luxury clothing, fashion accessories, cosmetics and perfume, as well as furniture and home accessories. One of the reasons for De Bijenkorf's decision to move to a central warehouse in Tilburg was that its older facilities were no longer fit for purpose.

The new 32,159^m2 warehouse will supply seven national stores as well as fulfill e-commerce orders from Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Austria. To support its activities, De Bijenkorf required a state-of-the-art automated solution with a sorting capacity of up to 8,000 items per hour, capable of handling both multi-item e-commerce orders and retail orders.

Vanderland's Airtrax Pocket bag sorter is an innovative and reliable solution for the transportation, sorting and storage of goods. The system in Tilburg has approximately 48,000 pockets and the solution offers De Bijenkorf a loading capacity of 8,000 pockets per hour. The bag sorter will enable De Bijenkorf to process approximately 95% of its 210,000 SKUs.

"Now that I can see the operation for myself, I am very impressed with Vanderland's Airtrax Pocket," said Maxim Hurkmans, Business Unit Director, Ingram Micro. "With its ability to reduce lead and transportation times and improve inventory management, we knew the solution would become an integral part of our omni-channel warehouse."

"De Bijenkorf has strong growth ambitions and wants to develop further in various areas. For this, and to remain competitive, highly automated solutions such as the Airtrax Pocket are essential. Not only is the system effective, but Vanderlande worked closely with us at all times during the installation and proved to be a truly professional partner," adds Joeri de Vaan, Senior Manager Operations, Ingram Micro.

"Innovations such as the Airtrax Pocket sorter demonstrate our ambition to remain at the forefront of warehouse technology," explains Vanderland's Executive Vice President Warehousing and Parcel, Terry Verkuijlen. "We are proud to partner with Ingram Micro on this latest development, and now that the pocket sorter is up and running, the warehouse can continue to provide a first-class delivery service to its customers."