NZ technology company BCS Group has won the work to build the highly specialised sortation system for Toll Group's new express parcel sorting facility in Australia.
One of Australia and New Zealand's largest provider of transport and logistics, Toll Group, is currently building the 53,000 square metre facility in the new Bungarribee Industrial Estate in Sydney's west.
The facility, and BCS sortation system, will help grow the capabilities of Toll's new online parcel delivery service, Toll Consumer Delivery, and will help Toll increase its parcel sorting capacity in Sydney more than three-fold.
This project uses a combination of BCS Groups hardware solutions and smart software products Freightflow and SYM3 to provide maximum transparency of its operations, as well as tracking and accurate loading for maximal operational productivity.
The project will enable Toll's parcels to be sorted and processed at approximately four times the rate as the current system allows on a system that maintains ultimate parcel integrity.
Its two cross-belt sorters have a combined length of approximately 1.7km and will sort more than 32,000 parcels per hour during peak operations. There are more than 600 conveyors, 63 trailer positions, 13 check weighers and six parcel dimensioners to automatically dimension and calculate weight, video coding stations, three fully automated pallet handling systems with shuttle transfer vehicles, and six camera barcode scanners with ability to capture all six sides of the parcel for automatic destination sorting and to log images.
BCS chief operating officer Brad Jackson said the company developed specific modular freight management software with infinitely customisable sortation and handling? for freight, parcel and distribution hubs.
"Freightflow can be deployed on both low and very high volume operations because of its scalable modular architecture, virtualisation technology and software performance."
Mr Jackson says BCS developed the world's first 3D control system (SYM3) that produces a dynamic 3D view of the hub operation, and the ability to display product tracking with associated data to provide information to allow for ultimate responsive operational management.
"The combination of the Freighflow and Sym3, which can be linked to multiple sites contributes dramatically to operational visibility and understanding, the key to optimising operations at not only a hub level but at a national level," he said.
BCS has previously delivered one of the largest freight handling systems seen in Australasia in 2009. That project was in Auckland and is capable of sorting just under 20,000 parcels per hour.
The work is a significant milestone for BCS Group, not only because of the sheer scale of the project but also the complexity involved.
"Traditionally, the BCS Group core business was in automated airport solutions and our many logistics projects in recent years has gradually been balancing the ledger. We made a business decision last year to scale our operations preparing for these large logistics projects, and our innovative industrial intelligence solutions have definitely allowed us to offer a unique value added solution which has helped us get across the line."
