Online retailer and Wesfarmers subsidiary Catch Group is set to deploy more than 100 autonomous mobile robots from Körber Supply Chain at its distribution centre in Truganina, Victoria.
Körber Supply Chain (formerly Cohesio Group) says this will be the largest deployment of autonomous mobile robots for an e-commerce marketplace in Australia and New Zealand. Deployment of the robots is set to start in November and will take approximately three months to complete.
The robots will operate across 3785 sqm of the 30,000 sqm facility. According to Körber they will give Catch the capability to manage an additional 80,000 SKUs over and above its existing range. Since being acquired by Wesfarmers in 2029, Catch has thousands of additional SKUs, Körber says.
Rizan Mawzoon, head of transformation at Körber Supply Chain Software, said the robots would enable Catch to pick an additional 2,000 orders an hour, and get it closer to its aim of offering same-day delivery.
COVID-19 is driving e-commerce numbers to an all-time high in Australia, Catch Group reported a 68.7 percent increase in total sales for the second half of FY20, following a 21.4 percent increase in sales in the first half of FY20.
