Thanks to shelving on mezzanine platforms, Docdata can simultaneously pick and sort warehouse goods on 4 floors.
Docdata is an international group with subsidiaries in the Netherlands, Great Britain and Germany. Established in 1987, the company was active, for a long time, as a manufacturer of CDs and DVDs. In 2000, Docdata began its e-commerce activities. Inside 10 years it had transformed itself into a fully-fledged e-commerce company.
From its own warehouses, Docdata provides logistic services for a broad spectrum of companies active on the Internet. This ranges from webshops to a full suite of order fulfilment services. Docdata offers customers a full-service e-commerce solution. This includes: stock control, order picking, packaging, personalization, carrier management, reverse logistics, dispatching, online marketing and online payments. Docdata originates over 100 000 shipments per day, making it one of Europe’s largest e-commerce companies.
In Großbeeren near Berlin, stow built two warehouses for Docdata. They feature a multi-floor shelving system, with a total height of 10 metres. The first phase ran from July to October 2010 and the second phase from July to September 2011. Within a 10 000 m² production hall, a 4-floor facility was built with a surface area of 5000 m². This was followed by a second unit with a surface area of 2500 m² within a 7000 m² depot. The entire racking comprises 34 aisles, 4 floors and more than 100 000 shelves, which corresponds to over 300 000 picking zones.
Stefan van Hoof is Geschäftsführer (Manager) at Docdata. He explains that, in the warehouses containing stow’s racking, they mainly hold clothing, shoes and clothing accessories for one large multinational, for forwarding to various European countries. Stefan van Hoof: “The choice of conventional shelving was obvious really. We wanted a practical, space-saving solution, so that we could store as much goods as possible in the smallest area possible. That was possible with this system, especially by going vertical. stow also guaranteed us a robust structure with four mezzanine floors.” Consequently, the stowshelf system has been specially conceived to store relatively small goods in tall warehouses. The weight may run to 230 kg per shelf and the mezzanine floors have a load on each upright post of max. 4000 kg.
What made Docdata choose stow? Mr van Hoof left no doubt that the very keen price proved decisive. But was quick to add: “Another deciding factor, of course, was the high quality of the system. For the rest, I can but say that we are delighted at the speed and flexibility of the installation. In the first phase, there were a few minor hitches, but those were resolved in a professional manner. In the second phase it all went smoothly. Clearly, stow is a company that thinks along with its customers.”
Does this bear repetition? Stefan van Hoof: “You bet. We love working with a company that stands out from the rest through its flexibility, expertise and experience.”
