Recently PostNL CEO Herna Verhagen and Constantijn van Oranje opened a robotic parcel sorting center for small parcels in Nieuwegein. The innovative sorting center, equipped with various robots, is unique in Europe and specially equipped for the sorting and national distribution of small packages. Expanding the delivery capacity is high on the agenda at PostNL. Earlier this year, PostNL opened a regular parcel sorting center in Westzaan. The packages that are processed in the new sorting center are the size of a large shoebox or smaller. Small packages mean less packaging material, less air, and less CO2 emissions.

“By processing small packages separately in this sorting center, we are creating more capacity in the 26 other package sorting centers. The maximum capacity of this robotic sorting center is equal to the capacity of five normal sorting centers. This way we are ready for the further growth of e-commerce and serving our business customers and consumers.”

Robots and data

PostNL is making more and smarter use of data, digitization and robotization. The sorting process in the sorting center for small packages uses various innovative tools and techniques, such as 175 robots for internal transport, robot arms for elevating the packages and bag filling stations. This way, small packages can be sorted 24/7. With intelligent software, each package can be followed exactly within the sorting center.

Making the e-commerce chain more sustainable

It is PostNL's ambition to make the e-commerce chain more sustainable with partners and innovation start-ups and scale-ups. That is why PostNL recently launched an innovation program in collaboration with Deloitte in the presence of Constantijn van Oranje, who, together with Techleap, is committed to the Dutch tech ecosystem to help ambitious and promising Dutch tech companies to grow nationally and internationally. The aim of the innovation program is to make the entire e-commerce chain from check-out in the web store to delivery at the door more sustainable. In this way PostNL wants to better enable its business customers and consumers to make sustainable choices. PostNL wants to achieve this by removing air from packaging, delivering even more efficiently and greener, reducing waste by focusing on fewer returns and making circular solutions easier.

Also read: Additional checks on phone usage while driving

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PostNL parcel deliverer sorts parcels on bicycle path
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