Decathlon has rolled out Exotec’s Skyfleet® automation program across seven warehouses in France, the UK, Portugal, Italy, and Germany. Each site uses 150–200 Skypod robots, handles 150,000–200,000 items daily, and processes up to 114,000 orders per day — double prior capacity at Setúbal. Picker walking distance dropped from 10 km to 1 km at Northampton, and incident rates halved. Standardized Deepsky® WES software, unified hardware specs, and cross-site robot redeployment enable rapid scaling and benchmarking. The program reflects a growing industry trend toward replicable, human-centric automation — joining similar multi-site deployments by Zalando, Otto Group, and ASOS across Europe.
According to www.prnewswire.com, Decathlon has deployed Exotec’s Skyfleet® multi-site automation program across seven warehouse sites in five European countries: France, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Italy, and Germany — standardizing store replenishment and intralogistics operations continent-wide.
Skyfleet Architecture: Replicable, Scalable, Unified
Building on its first Skypod® robotic system launched at Tilburg (Netherlands) in 2021, Decathlon partnered with Exotec to implement a standardized warehouse architecture. Each Skyfleet site features:
- A fleet of 150 to 200 Skypod robots
- 100,000 to 125,000 storage locations
- Throughput capacity of 3,000 to 4,000 lines per hour
- Processing 150,000 to 200,000 items per day
- 7 to 13 picking stations, including configurations with order movers
- Parcel buffering within the same storage system
- Full automation of inbound and outbound flows
End-to-End Automation & Software Standardization
At every site, Exotec integrated complementary automated equipment — including automatic depalletizers, carton opening machines, RFID tunnels, and automatic palletizers — selected and deployed consistently across locations. This standardization reduced design-phase costs and accelerated implementation. All systems are orchestrated by Deepsky®, Exotec’s proprietary Warehouse Execution System (WES), enabling a single shared software codebase across all seven warehouses — simplifying deployment, maintenance, and upgrades.
Human-Centric Outcomes & Operational Gains
The Skyfleet program significantly improved working conditions: at Northampton (UK), daily walking distance for pickers dropped from 10 km to 1 km, and workplace incidents related to order picking fell from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 10,000. Operationally, Ferrières (France) now serves 73 stores, up from 37; Setúbal (Portugal) expanded from 41 to 73 stores. Setúbal’s order preparation capacity doubled to 114,000 orders per day — up from 57,000. Flexibility is built in: during peak demand, robots can be redeployed between sites — Ferrières, for example, added 13 additional robots.
“We were looking for a partner to support us in rationalizing our logistics network. We chose Exotec because they were able to deploy many sites in a short time and integrate scalable solutions that adapt to our evolution. In five years, we have profoundly transformed the experience of our warehouse employees and written the next chapter of logistics for Decathlon.” — Jérôme Saillour, Head of Logistics Automation at Decathlon
“When we launched our first Skypod robotic system nearly ten years ago, we brought flexibility and resilience to storage and order picking. As intralogistics has become strategic for our clients, we now create value across the entire warehouse, and through this Skyfleet program, we demonstrate our ability to orchestrate multi-site deployments.” — Romain Moulin, co-founder and CEO of Exotec
Source: www.prnewswire.com
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
