MS Direct, Bergzeit and Kardex bring AutoStore live in record time

Kaufbeuren/St. Gallen, October 12, 2026 – At its site in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria, MS Direct brought an AutoStore system with 25,000 bins live in just 17 weeks. It was delivered in close partnership with intralogistics specialist Kardex and mountain sports online retailer Bergzeit. This makes the project one of the fastest AutoStore implementations of this size in Europe.

After Arbon and Oftringen in Switzerland, Kaufbeuren is MS Direct’s first automated site in Germany. Experience from the Swiss projects fed directly into the Kaufbeuren rollout.

The system was integrated into the existing site while fulfillment operations continued. MS Direct was responsible for planning, process integration and connecting to the warehouse management system and shop systems; Kardex handled the design and installation of the AutoStore technology. “The reason we were able to go live so quickly is that processes, interfaces and the team were ready when the system ramped up. We tested this approach in Switzerland and are now rolling it out to additional sites,” says Christian Neumayer, COO of MS Direct AG, who is leading the project.

“An AutoStore project of this size typically takes at least six months from contract signing to go-live. In Kaufbeuren, it took 17 weeks,” says Daniel Hauser, Head of Business Unit AS Solutions at Kardex.

The system is designed for fashion fulfillment. A key advantage is dense storage: on around 600 m²—70% less space than a conventional warehouse—it can handle a wide variety of SKUs without compromising operational performance. This means fashion assortments with many variants can be managed space-efficiently, scalably and with fast availability.

For Bergzeit, Kaufbeuren is its first AutoStore operation ever. The retailer has been a customer of MS Direct since 2016; for the implementation, its long-standing e-commerce operations partner was therefore the first choice. “The project clearly shows what’s actually possible when everyone pulls together and you focus on synergies: our customers feel it most during peak season in our on-time delivery performance. For all three parties, the project is a true triple win,” says Thomas Lechl, Chief Logistics Officer at Bergzeit.

The system will also create new skilled jobs in Kaufbeuren, including in plant engineering and system support. The system has a modular design and can be expanded during ongoing operations. In addition to Bergzeit, other online shops will be able to use the capacities in Kaufbeuren in the future.