Dematic automates Belgian Railways parts warehouse

Dematic is working with Belgian contractor Alheembouw to deliver automated warehouse systems for NMBS, Belgium’s national railway company, at a new logistics centre in Mechelen.

The facility will handle storage and distribution of components and spare parts used in the maintenance, repair, and modernisation of the Belgian rail fleet. It is being built on a former industrial site owned by NMBS and forms part of a wider renewal of infrastructure linked to the Central Workshop in Mechelen.

The project combines two automated storage systems. A high-bay warehouse with six stacker cranes will operate across a structure around 45 metres high and 120 metres long. Its double-deep storage layout will provide more than 48,000 pallet spaces, giving NMBS dense bulk storage within a compact footprint. Three picking stations will be directly connected to the high-bay system.

An AutoStore installation will sit on a mezzanine level next to the high-bay warehouse. The system will store more than 17,000 bins and use six robots with four SwingPort workstations for inbound and outbound goods. Dematic warehouse control technology will connect the high-bay and AutoStore systems, coordinating material flow and process control across the facility.

Alheembouw is responsible for construction of the wider site, which also includes a conventional low-bay warehouse, a modern office building, and external works. The project is being developed under a design-build-maintain structure, with the broader Mechelen logistics centre targeting BREEAM Excellent standards.

Spare-parts logistics places unusual demands on warehouse design. Rail maintenance networks must hold large numbers of components, many of which move slowly but become critical when a train is awaiting repair or modernisation. Poor availability can interrupt workshop planning, reduce fleet availability, and create avoidable pressure on maintenance teams.

That operating profile explains the hybrid automation design. Pallet-scale systems can manage larger or bulkier items, while cube-based goods-to-person storage suits smaller components that need dense, accurate, and rapid retrieval. Combining the two reduces manual searching, shortens internal travel, and gives maintenance operations clearer control over parts availability.

The NMBS project fits a wider European shift in which warehouse automation is becoming core infrastructure rather than an isolated productivity upgrade. Decathlon is standardising European warehousing with Skyfleet, while Dosenbach-Ochsner has automated its Swiss distribution centre with Skypod robots. Rail maintenance differs from retail fulfilment, but the same pressure runs through all three cases: operators want denser storage, more predictable flow, and less exposure to labour-intensive internal movement.

For rail operators, the performance measure is asset uptime rather than consumer delivery speed. Fleet modernisation, component obsolescence, changing rolling stock configurations, and maintenance peaks all raise the importance of accurate inventory. Automation can improve control, but it also demands stronger master data, cleaner item classification, disciplined replenishment, and closer alignment between maintenance planning and warehouse execution.

The use of a former industrial site also reflects a land-use pattern becoming more common across Europe. As planning constraints, sustainability targets, and limited logistics land make greenfield development harder, operators are looking again at brownfield industrial locations that can support high-density storage and modern intralogistics systems.

Once operational, the Mechelen logistics centre will give NMBS a more controlled platform for spare-parts flow into workshops and maintenance programmes. The height of the high-bay warehouse and the use of robots provide the visible part of the project, but the larger gain lies in connecting rail maintenance demand with accurate, space-efficient, and responsive inventory control.