Würth Australia has handed Dematic a contract to automate order fulfilment at its two distribution centres, with Yatala going live in August 2027 and the larger Keysborough site following in December 2027. That's a two-site, multi-year build aimed squarely at order accuracy for a customer base that doesn't tolerate half-complete deliveries.

The core of the investment is AutoStore goods-to-person technology, running alongside — not instead of — manual picking. It's a hybrid play, and a fairly pragmatic one.

Würth Australia moves more than 22,000 product lines to over 56,000 active customers across automotive, transport, construction, mining and MRO. For context: that's a catalogue broad enough that no single automation vendor would sensibly claim it all.

What does the system actually do?

The new setups combine high-density automated storage with split-case and full-case picking. Dedicated manual areas will handle products whose storage and handling requirements don't suit the grid.

From there, orders shuttle between automated and manual zones before hitting conveyors for:

• document insertion
• carton optimisation
• sealing and labelling
• despatch sortation

Dematic's warehouse control system will integrate with Würth's existing WMS to coordinate picking tasks and material movements across the automated equipment. In plain terms: one brain, two sets of hands.

Why accuracy is the commercial driver

Serge Oppedisano, chief executive of Würth Australia and senior vice president of the Würth Group Oceania, framed the deal around service rather than throughput. He said: "The customer experience is incredibly important to us here at Würth, and a big part of that is ensuring our customers receive accurate and complete orders when they expect them."

That's the line that matters. For a distributor serving repair and maintenance customers, a missing bolt delays a job site; the cost of an incomplete order lands well downstream of the warehouse.

What does this change for shippers and 3PL watchers?

For Würth's customers, the promise is fewer picking errors and more reliable despatch windows once the systems bed in — though the wait runs to late 2027. For competitors in Australian industrial distribution, it raises the automation baseline: high-density storage plus hybrid picking is becoming table stakes for broadline catalogues.

For Dematic, it's another regional AutoStore reference in a market where labour-constrained DCs are steadily converting to goods-to-person. The staggered go-lives — August then December — suggest a deliberate pilot-and-scale sequence rather than a big-bang rollout.

The timeline

Nothing here happens quickly. Yatala, Queensland, comes first in August 2027. Keysborough, Victoria, the larger of the two, follows four months later in December 2027. Until then, Würth's 56,000 customers will keep getting orders the way they always have.

Automation, as ever, rewards patience. The grid gets built; the dividends arrive later.