The building is 46 meters high and can accommodate 80,000 pallets. In 24 hours, 12,000 pallets can be moved. "This building is an international first, even in America they don't have that," says CEO Geert De Jaeger.
Dematra is a logistics company that specializes in the storage and distribution of food and non-food products. That ranges from chips to travel cases. The Nazareth-based company already has four warehouses in our country that together can store 80,000 pallets. With the new building, currently under construction in the De Prijkels industrial park, that number will be doubled in one go. The new warehouse has room for 80,000 pallets. Especially the high-rise building and the fact that the warehouse is fully automated make it unique.
Unlike most warehouses, we do not work with cranes, but with shuttles, which are much more flexible.
"Unlike most other warehouses, we do not work with cranes, but with shuttles," explains CEO Geert De Jaeger. "Cranes need a lot of space and are cumbersome. With us, shuttles, a kind of carts, drive around. They can pick up pallets and bring them to our elevators, which then distribute them over the 15 floors. Those shuttles are automatically controlled and can do as many as 12,000 pallet movements in 24 hours."
There is no warehouse that can handle 12,000 pallet movements a day, even in America.
And that is unseen even internationally, says De Jaeger. "There is no existing warehouse that can handle that, even in America. It is a fairly new system, but it is much smoother than the old one with cranes. We are the first logistics company to dare to put up such a building."
"Unlike manufacturing companies, we don't know when to store which products. We work on behalf of production companies. But thanks to our shuttles, we are very flexible. If there is a lot of work, we can rent additional shuttles if necessary to do the work even faster. The biggest challenge in this is the height. The elevator has to be fast enough to bring all the shuttles up and back."
According to De Jaeger, the new building, which is 46 meters high, is the future. "Thanks to our height, we barely occupy 10,000 square meters. If you didn't go into height, you would need 5 to 6 acres. So our ecological footprint is a lot smaller."
The warehouse may be fully automated, but there is room for 42 full-time new employees, bringing the total number within Dematra to more than 200. The building, which cost 50 million, should be completed in early 2023.
