With annual growth of approximately 40%, QLS needed a fulfillment model that could scale alongside the business. By expanding AutoStore across multiple sites and implementing the world's first FlexBins installation, QLS increased storage density, automated a broader product range, and created a repeatable fulfillment blueprint capable of supporting continued growth across Europe.
QLS runs the entire logistics process for roughly 3,000 webshops from the Netherlands. Its fulfillment center in Dordrecht had been expanded step by step to keep pace, but the building eventually ran out of room, and one part of the assortment still sat outside the automated process. Oversized products needed separate manual storage and picking, which added handling time and ran a second workflow alongside the first.
The answer was a second Dutch site in Alblasserdam, approximately 16,000 sqm (172,222 sf) and 10 minutes from Dordrecht, which went live in September 2025. It is built around an AutoStore goods-to-person system configured with FlexBins, a dual-Grid design that QLS is the first company in the world to operate.
The important part is not the installation itself, but that it can be repeated. Bin, Port, and Robot capacity is added one piece at a time as customers sign and grow, so investment tracks demand instead of running years ahead of it. Alblasserdam currently processes around 6,000 parcels per hour, with 10,000 per hour in sight within a few months, and the same blueprint is now what QLS carries into every new site.
“AutoStore has brought QLS many advantages. Compact storage, efficient order collection, but above all a lot of scalability.”
- Mark van de Weijer, Syncore
Multi-tenant third-party logistics (3PL) is one of the least forgiving corners of the supply chain. A single-brand warehouse can be designed around one product profile and one demand curve, and a 3PL has no such luxury.
“What makes QLS so compelling is that they operate in one of the most demanding segments in logistics, which is the multi-tenant 3PL operations,” said Vanessa Schaefer, Enterprise Account Manager at AutoStore.
“They are handling many customers under one roof and even within one system. All of those customers have different types of SKU portfolios; they have different requirements on their packaging processes, on their value-added services and different seasonality.”
Volume also arrives in waves, and the workload naturally increases during Black Friday, December, and other peak times while floor space stays fixed.
“This creates a lot of pressure to be as flexible as possible, but keep up the efficiency in the warehouse,” Schaefer said.
That pressure translated into two business constraints. Dordrecht had been optimized repeatedly but had reached its physical limits, which capped how much new volume the network could take on. And because oversized products could not move through the automated flow, every one of those orders carried manual handling time, slowed the operation, and put pressure on the same-day and next-day service QLS sells.
Capacity that can be added in increments is what makes the investment repeatable. The installation grew in phases alongside the business, starting in Dordrecht with a few Robots and a handful of Ports and expanding customer-by-customer while orders kept shipping.
“The great thing about AutoStore is that we can implement it very modularly in a fulfillment center.”
- Valentijn van Gent, Business Consultant, QLS
“Our customers can grow in that fulfillment center, further expand the AutoStore, and continue to offer the quality to all customers,” Van Gent said.
“With the various expansion phases we had at QLS, it was a priority to disrupt their daily operations as little as possible,” said Jorn Reijmer of Syncore. “Good advance planning, but also good coordination during the operations, and flexibility from both sides, was essential here.”
Having proved the model at two locations, QLS can take on a bigger customer or a broader assortment knowing the fulfillment operation will hold. That matters most as the company moves outside the Netherlands. QLS acquired J&J Global Fulfilment at the end of 2025, adding seven fulfillment centers across Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United States.
“Due to the fact that AutoStore is standardized, you can create a blueprint in one warehouse and roll it out across several warehouses across the world as well,” Schaefer said.
For Reijmer, that appetite is characteristic of the customer.
“What I find special about it is the entrepreneurial and innovative character of QLS,” he said. “They always lead the way to implement the latest developments.”
Alblasserdam lifted both constraints. Products of very different dimensions now move through one automated flow, so the large-format items that previously required manual work are handled automatically. Roughly 15% of the 30,000 Bins in operation are the larger format.
Buffering and order consolidation take place inside the installation itself, with no additional systems and no manual intermediate steps, which shortens the time an order spends in the building.
The FlexBins configuration also returns space. Combining two Bin heights within one Grid raises storage density by an estimated 10% to 15% while a broader product range is handled, so more assortment and more customers fit inside the footprint QLS already pays for.
In practice, the results are:
Throughput to match demand: around 6,000 parcels per hour today, with 10,000 per hour in sight within a few months
A near-complete automated assortment: oversized goods, roughly 15% of Bins, now move through the same flow as small items
Higher storage density: an estimated 10% to 15% gain from dual Bin heights in one Grid, in the same footprint
Modular expansion: Bins, Ports, and Robots added incrementally as customers sign and grow
Protected uptime: Bin ResQ Robot™ and fast-charging R5 Pro™ Robots keep availability high through peak
A repeatable blueprint: one standardized model proven at two locations and ready to roll out internationally
That throughput helps the team absorb rising volumes without rebuilding the operation around every peak.
“With the AutoStore system, we can serve all those customers fantastically, with high quality and thus have the orders at the consumers' homes as quickly as possible.”
- Valentijn van Gent, Business Consultant, QLS
Reliability protects that performance. QLS was among the first companies in the world to put the Bin ResQ Robot™ into operation, which detects and resolves problem Bins automatically so downtime stays low when peak season makes availability matter most. Newer R5 Pro™ Robots also extend the working day, charging in 30 minutes. That opens up longer and multiple shifts, and at peak it allows the same fleet to run around the clock.
AutoStore stores goods in Bins stacked directly on top of one another inside an aluminum Grid, removing the aisles and empty air that conventional shelving requires. Robots travel across the top of the Grid, lift the Bin holding the required goods, and deliver it to a Port, where an operator picks, replenishes, or packs. Bins return to the Grid immediately, and the most frequently requested goods settle nearer the surface, so retrieval times improve as the system runs.
In the FlexBins configuration at Alblasserdam, two Grids with different Bin heights, 220 mm and 425 mm, are coupled directly to one another and managed as a single system. A small accessory and a bulky item therefore follow the same automated path from storage to dispatch, without a separate manual process for the larger goods.
Supporting technologies extend the flow beyond the Grid. Packaging machines from Savoye (Jivaro) and Ranpak prepare parcels for dispatch, and a sorter supplied by Automation Supply with 180 chutes gives each carrier its own chute, which lets QLS prioritize same-day delivery. QLS also develops its own software layer on top of the system, which the company uses to make its AutoStore operation continually more efficient.
What QLS has built is not a single warehouse but an operating model. Capacity is added one Bin, Port, and Robot at a time as customers sign and grow, so roughly 40% annual growth becomes an operating plan rather than an ambition.
FlexBins is what widened that model to cover almost the entire assortment, and standardization is what makes it portable. With two locations proved in the Netherlands and seven more fulfillment centers joining through the J&J Global Fulfilment acquisition, QLS now has a fulfillment blueprint it can keep replicating, site by site and market by market, as the company continues to expand internationally.
Installation type: Brownfield (Existing site)
Bins: 30,000 Bins in operation, in 220 mm and 425 mm heights, of which approximately 15 percent are the larger format
WMS: QLS in-house-developed software layer
Integrated technology/automation: sorter with 180 chutes supplied by Automation Supply, packaging machines from Savoye (Jivaro) and Ranpak, Bin ResQ Robot
Partner: Syncore, formerly Lalesse Logistic Solutions