OCM: The Omnichannel Platform For The Retail Network

Sweden's Axfood has been looking for a solution that would unify the logistics centres of its traditional store business and e-commerce business. 

Managing director of logistics at Axfood in Sweden, Nicholas Pettersson, and his team were looking for a combination of store picking and online picking – an all in one warehouse. 

The OCM (Omni Channel Machinery) strategy of WITRON helped the Scandinavians with this challenge. 

WITRON's CEO, Helmut Prieschenk, said, "OCM stands for the integration of all horizontal and vertical players of an omnichannel network - suppliers, logistics centres, transportation, as well as the different distribution channels, stores, home delivery, click and collect, and drives."

The aim is to create a platform, an efficient end-to-end retail logistics centre where all nodes communicate with each other regularly and at the same time optimise each other. 

Axfood is building an automated omnichannel warehouse of more than 100,000 square metres near Stockholm with WITRON. 

It will supply both store and online customers from one central location and develop a retail platform in association with WITRON. 

The highly automated logistics centre will supply Axfood stores and online customers with more than 22,000 different items. 

The temperature zones will range from +25 degrees Celsius to -26 degrees Celsius. 

The facility, scheduled to commence operations in 2023, will be equipped with a pick performance of 1.6 million units per day. 

For Prof Alexander Hübner from the TU Munich (Munich University of Technology), things are quite obvious. 

He said, "Omnichannel is a must-have in the retail business. If you want to survive as a retailer, you have to be present on all channels." 

Prieschenk added, "The logistics requirements in retail business have changed fundamentally in recent years: A one-dimensional supply chain has become a multi-dimensional demand network."