"With the use of AutoStore systems, we are taking a logical step on the path to further developing our company," says Daniela Isfort, who manages the fortunes of the Isfort Group as Managing Director of several companies. In 1966, her father founded IBS Bürosysteme Karl Isfort GmbH & Co KG in Münster, his first trading company for office supplies. This has since grown into a group of companies active throughout Germany, with almost 200 employees at six locations and a comprehensive range of office organization products for B2B customers.

Wherever possible, Isfort puts the proverbial customer proximity into practice. At the company headquarters in Münster, office supplies ordered within a radius of 50 kilometers are not delivered by traditional parcel services, but by cargo bike and all-electric sprinter.

Personal customer contacts require time above all else. The search for accessible time resources led Daniela Isfort to the company's internal logistics processes. In Isfort's logistics centers, more than 15,000 items are stored in a total area of 8,000^m2 and can be delivered throughout Germany and Europe within 24 hours. In the past, the picking of ordered goods followed traditional processes, i.e. the manual removal of individual items from traditional storage containers took a comparatively long time due to the long picking routes.

The Isfort Group has now invested in AutoStore in order to reduce costs and at the same time create reserves for the future: "Thanks to AutoStore, we were able to increase our storage capacity by 50 percent without having to take up any additional space," reports Daniela Isfort. Automatic picking via AutoStore also led to a five-fold increase in productivity, combined with time savings that previously had to be spent on walking.

Ordered and delivered promptly

The Isfort Group commissioned AM-Automation to implement the redesigned logistics processes. Within just a few months, AM-Automation designed and implemented an AutoStore system with 18,000 bins and 28 robots at Isfort's headquarters in the Roxel district of Münster, which keeps the entire range of office supplies available on demand. The system allows more than 700 order items to be picked per hour; in most cases, Isfort's customers in Münster can receive the goods just a few hours after placing the order. And instead of cladding the outside of the structure with red or grey MDF panels as is usually the case, AM-Automation has transformed the aluminum grid system into the first magenta-colored "girls' AutoStore" at the customer's request.

Isfort had another AutoStore system installed by AM-Automation at the Laer site, 20 kilometers away. Around 9,500 storage containers can be filled there with up to 20,000 school bags. The system is equipped with three robots as standard; however, towards the end of the summer vacations, when demand picks up significantly at the start of the school year, the picking capacity can be increased as required using "borrowed" robots from the Münster logistics center.

"By using AutoStore systems and working together with AM-Automation, we were able to make our logistics processes completely sustainable," says Daniela Isfort, "and because the energy requirements of the robots used are hardly greater than running a few vacuum cleaners, we are also making a contribution to climate protection, so to speak."