To support the rapid growth of e-commerce, La Poste is opening its fifth, and largest to date, ‘new generation’ parcel sorting facility in Ile-de-France Sud. Since 2015, the growth of e-commerce has accelerated sharply in France. In 2020, 17,400 new e-merchants arrived on the market and e-commerce now represents 13.4% of retail trade compared with 9.8% in 2019.
Capable of sorting 37,000 parcels per hour, the center is a result of La Poste’s investment plan which was launched in 2016. Managed by Poste-Immo, the center took two years to construct and was commissioned at the end of April. According to La Poste, it is the largest sorting center in France, both in terms of area and parcel capacity.
Occupying an area of 23,000m2 , the facility is equipped with the latest generation double sorter system and is the first of the post’s new facilities to be equipped with ‘by-pass’ technology, which allows certain packages to take a shortcut on the sorter system depending on their departure point.
Working conditions have been tailored to limit effort and prevent accidents, particularly during parcel handling. The unloading of parcels is, for example, facilitated by an ‘Express Snoot’: a handling aid tool, adapted for the French Post Office, consisting of an articulated arm positioned at the end of the loader allowing the parcels to slide rather than be lifted. It moves laterally and vertically to always be as close as possible to operators and thus limit movements and movements when unloading packages.