In Sport Okay's 16-metre-high logistics center, the company's entire range of products is automatically packed into parcels - from soft down jackets to hard, foldable touring poles. More than 40,000 items for outdoor, mountain, cycling and skiing sports from more than 300 well-known brands are in stock at the distribution center in Tyrol. If you order goods online by midday, they are usually delivered the next day in Germany and Austria. According to the company, the delivery promise is kept 95 percent of the time.

To ensure that the alpine clothing and sports equipment can leave the warehouse as quickly as possible, SportOkay.com relies on a fully automated small parts warehouse on the upper floor and a robot system in the basement that moves shelves to picking stations. Once the goods have been placed in the CVP Impack, the packaging process runs quickly: the process takes just seven seconds. The machine automatically cuts, fills, folds, glues and labels transport packages. According to Quadient, thanks to the customized cartons, shippers can save up to 30 percent of corrugated cardboard and up to 50 percent of the transport volume on average. For the majority of orders, companies also no longer need any filling material in the parcels.

In addition to the high throughput of the system and the easy compensation of seasonal fluctuations in demand, SportOkay.com's expertise in process automation was the decisive factor for the investment. "As the system was commissioned quickly, we were able to achieve an enormous increase in performance in a very short time. Now that manual packaging is history, four of the former seven employees from the packaging area can devote themselves to other tasks," emphasizes Konrad Plankensteiner, CEO of SportOkay.com.

The sustainable packaging solution was purchased shortly after Plankensteiner had inspected a demonstration model at the production site in Drachten, the Netherlands. SportOkay.com wants to use process automation in the packaging area to prepare for the targeted sales growth of 25 percent per year. In 2019, the e-commerce specialist shipped more than 250,000 parcels throughout the EU. "Because we also guarantee our customers very fast deliveries on promotional days such as Black Friday or in the run-up to Christmas, automating the packaging area was essential," reports the company boss.

The machine has already passed its first performance test. With a lockdown in many European countries boosting online business in addition to the pre-Christmas business, SportOkay.com recorded a 100% increase in sales in November compared to the same month last year. "Despite the peak in demand, we were able to hand over the ordered shipments to the parcel services without any delays. In addition, thanks to CVP Impack, the risk of employees being infected with Covid-19 in the packaging area has decreased because less than half of the original staff are now working there," explains Plankensteiner.