Yodel has announced the launch of a new bespoke, semi-automated sort facility, designed to process bulky or delicate parcels. The new facility, dubbed Merlin, has been installed at Yodel’s Wednesbury, UK sort centre and now allows Yodel to handle around 17,000 parcels an hour at the site.
The new system is a bespoke design developed by Yodel, costing over £1m, and replaces two manual sorting carousels. Sitting alongside one of the largest fully-automated sort at Wednesbury, Merlin can handle items up to 1.8m long and up to 0.9m wide. It is capable of processing up to 2,500-metre-long items per hour.
Merlin’s automation will also ensure that clients and customers benefit from greater visibility and traceability of their parcels throughout the network. Items that previously had to be manually sorted will now be automatically scanned, weighed, volumised and photographed as they pass through the system and are sorted to Yodel’s nationwide network of customer delivery depots. Furthermore, the new system will also be directly linked to Yodel’s billing systems to enable speed and accuracy of invoice processing.
Lucy Robertson, Yodel’s director of sort and transport, said: “The investment in equipment and technology will deliver improvements in flow as well as reduce parcel handling by our colleagues. The ergonomic design will also make our colleagues’ work easier and reduce the risk of strain and injury.”
Source: Yodel
