Calzedonia Group Italian Distribution Center Pouch System

Project Overview

The Calzedonia Group, a leading fashion retailer, faced a common challenge in its Italian distribution center: the need to increase operational capacity for both order fulfillment and the critical process of returns handling. However, the opportunity for a physical expansion of the warehouse building was limited or undesirable.

The project's primary objective was to find an automation solution that could be seamlessly integrated into the existing facility without requiring an extension of the building's footprint. The goal was to leverage advanced sortation technology to boost throughput and efficiency for outbound orders and inbound returns within the constrained existing space. Calzedonia Group selected BEUMER Group's innovative BG Pouch System™ as the solution to meet these specific requirements.

Technical Solution

BEUMER BG Pouch System™

The core of the installation is the BEUMER Group BG Pouch System™. This is an automated pouch or pocket sortation system, where items are placed into individual carriers (pouches) that are routed along an overhead track network to their designated destinations.

Key Features

The system's most notable feature is its exceptional space efficiency, achieved through a combination of a compact mechanical design and strategic overhead installation. This makes it uniquely suitable for retrofitting into existing facilities with height clearance.

The solution was specifically chosen for its ability to be tailored ("designed to fit") into Calzedonia Group's current premises, demonstrating a flexible and non-intrusive implementation approach. It addresses two critical pain points—fulfillment throughput and returns processing—with a single, integrated automation asset.

Results & Benefits

The project successfully expanded the distribution center's order fulfillment and returns handling capacity without the need for a costly and time-consuming physical building expansion. This represents a significant capital and operational saving.

The ceiling-mounted installation of the BG Pouch System transformed unused overhead space into productive sortation infrastructure, saving precious floor space for other value-adding activities. The compact design itself provided a 30% footprint reduction over alternative systems, further maximizing the use of the existing facility.

Challenges & Solutions

The central challenge was a classic space constraint: needing more capacity but having no room to grow the building horizontally. BEUMER Group's BG Pouch System provided an elegant "vertical" solution. Its ceiling-mounted design and inherently smaller footprint allowed Calzedonia to add a high-throughput sortation system by utilizing the air space within the warehouse, thus expanding capacity without expanding the footprint, perfectly aligning with the project's core constraint.

System Integrator

BEUMER Group served as the system provider and integrator for this project. They were responsible for designing the BG Pouch System™ solution to fit Calzedonia Group's specific site layout and operational needs, supplying the technology, and integrating the ceiling-mounted sortation system into the existing distribution center's workflows for both fulfillment and returns processing.