Woolworths is building a $100 million fully-automated warehouse to power its home delivery service.
The supermarket has applied to develop a 22,000sqm facility in Auburn in Sydney s west, which will use robots to deliver 50,000 groceries a week.
Groceries at the moment are packed by workers in regular supermarkets and at manual fulfilment facilities, where products are stored on large shelves and loaded into bags before being delivered.
Woolworths is building a $100million fully automated centre to support its home delivery service. Pictured: Artist s impression of new centre in Auburb, Sydney
The facility will use AI technology by logistics company Knapp to deliver 50,000 groceries every week
Woolworths to automate online grocery orders
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Woolworths hopes to slash the cost of online groceries and deliver more orders faster by building automated fulfilment centres to supplement orders picked from its supermarkets and “dark” stores.
The first automated centralised fulfilment centre (CFC) will be built at a cost of more than $100 million in the densely populated suburb of Auburn, in Sydney’s western suburbs, and the retailer has not ruled out opening more as demand for online groceries soars.
An image of Woolworths’ proposed automated centralised fulfilment centre in Auburn.
The centre will use “lift and shuttle” technology supplied by Austrian-based automation and logistics specialist Knapp and will enable Woolworths to process 50,000 online grocery orders a week. This is double what it can process from one of its five manual fulfilment centres or “dark” stores.