How the pharmacy company Apo.com Group from Leipzig has achieved using robotics that 95 percent of orders in the logistics center in Duiven, Netherlands are machine-supported picked, is explained by Daniel Mühl, Chief Operating Officer of the Apo.com Group, in an interview with LOGISTIK HEUTE 4/2025. This allows the company to deliver to patients faster and more securely.
In Duiven, an individually weighed carton is brought to a pick cell designed by Apo.com, where a cobot from Righthand Robotics is located. At the same time, six "AutoStore" containers are delivered there.
"Then our system forms a batch from the available orders and the robot picks," says Mühl.
According to the COO, an AI-driven, pick-robot-based logistics system is still an absolute rarity.
"We process around 25,000 orders fully automated per day at the Duiven site," reports Mühl.
The nominal capacity can also be ramped up to 30,000 orders.
According to Mühl, vision systems play a huge role in artificial intelligence in the picking cell. For example, Apo.com uses a vision system in quality control in a specific project:
“We count, for example, in a carton at the goods issue whether the number of items is really correct,” says the Chief Operating Officer.
And a vision system will also be used for permanent inventory in the future.
You can read the full interview with the COO of the Apo.com Group, Daniel Mühl, titled “How We Plan to Increase Output by 50 Percent” in LOGISTIK HEUTE 4/2025.
Daniel Mühl also speaks at the CONFERENCE DAYS in the session “How Robots Accelerate Automation in Intralogistics” on May 12 at 1 p.m. His lecture is titled: “Intelligent Automation for the Online Pharmacy: Robotics in Use at the apo.com Group”.
