Superdry and Invar Systems with Hikrobot win Supply Chain Excellence Award
November 13, 2020
An Invar Systems project, involving the rollout of Hikrobot AMRs across Superdry’s international DC network, has won the highly coveted Technology Supply Chain Excellence trophy at the 2020 Supply Chain Excellence Awards.
The entry was also Highly Commended by the judges in the Best Use of Robotics category.
The Supply Chain Excellence Awards scheme, now in its 24th year, is recognised as the most prestigious awards scheme in the supply chain sector, requiring entrants to not only submit a detailed written entry, but also to present in front of a panel of judges.
The combined team from Superdry and Invar Systems with Hikrobot ‘received’ the trophy at a virtual awards ceremony held on 12th November, in front of a global audience of supply chain professionals.
Commenting on the award win, Tim Wright, Managing Director of Invar Systems said: “This is a great honour. The entire team, and everyone within the Invar Group, is delighted to have been recognised by the industry for the hard work, dedication and technological expertise that has gone into this advanced AMR pick-to-light project for Superdry.”
Gordon Knox, Business Transformation and Logistics Director at Superdry Plc, said: “Winning this award gives us great pride in what we have achieved. As a global fashion brand, we have to be at the forefront of developments within the DC. The use of advanced robotics will allow us to support future growth by giving us the flexibility and scalability we need across our international network of multi-channel fulfilment centres.”
A successful pilot project for handling ecommerce returns was conducted in 2018, involving six autonomous Hikrobot carriers at the company’s UK distribution centre in Burton-upon-Trent. Following the success of the project, Superdry went on in January 2020 to deploy a further fleet of 20 Hikrobot carriers to handle continental ecommerce returns at its European DC in Belgium.
This spring, the Burton-upon-Trent site saw the installation of 40 more Hikrobot autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in an expansion of the existing goods-to-person system. The enlarged operation handles the entire picking and put-away of womenswear for retail, ecommerce and wholesale. Over 80,000 sq ft of the warehouse has been set out with 1000 transportable pick-wall modules and the area is equipped with a total of twelve pick-to-light stations.
Menswear will follow later with an estimated requirement for 60 more robots and expectations are for the further deployment of Hikrobot carriers in Belgium and the USA – all part of a phased roll-out of goods-to-person robotics that is set to boost productivity and capacity across Superdry’s international network of multi-channel fulfilment centres.
