- Logistic services specialist wins international invitation to tender together with Austria-based ACL
- Contract secures the full use of capacities of the Alzenau location - First phase designed for up to 5,000 orders per day
In its location in Alzenau, trans-o-flex Logistik-Service is going to operate the central distribution centre for dm-drogerie markt's online shop going live at the beginning of this summer. In a first step, about 20 employees will put the approximately 14,000 different articles into storage, pick and pack them for order-specific dispatch and hand them over to parcel services for delivery purposes. The online distribution centre was started from January 2015 onwards. The first tests of the order and dispatch processes took place in February and March. The official going-live of the online shop is scheduled for the beginning of this summer.
In a first step, a storage area of up to 5,000 m² will be made available for dm. In the first phase, the concept design makes it possible to process up to 5,000 orders per day in shelving racks. "With respect to its potential, the co-operation with dm is one of the largest contracts that we ever won in our history", says Peter Astor, Managing Director of Logistik-Service. Therefore, we have already secured the possibility of clearly increasing capacities in this location."
The international invitation to tender, in which several service providers had participated, was won together with Austria-based ACL advanced commerce labs GmbH (www.acl.at). Founded in 1999 in Bärnbach near Graz, the company specialises in interlinking shop-based sale and online business for trading companies and brand manufacturers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. ACL commissions trans-o-flex Logistik-Service with the logistic fulfilment.
The first joint talks of trans-o-flex and ACL with dm-drogerie markt took place in August 2013. The offer was submitted in September 2013. "Although ACL acts as the main contractor, we worked on the bid together", explains Peter Astor. "And the fact that we won is not least attributable to dm's visit to the logistic location in Alzenau in November 2013: The dm officials could see for themselves that we were ready to start without any building work or investments because the warehouse with the shelving racks was already in operation, though not at full capacity." With dm-drogerie markt's contract, not only the pallet warehouse in Alzenau but also the platform with the shelving racks will be made full use of.In the future, dm will supply its articles to the online distribution centre in the same way as it does to its stationary dm Markt shops. The articles will be delivered from the various dm distribution centres. Direct deliveries to online customers take place in co-operation with a parcel service specialising in B2C shipments.