Wincanton installed VersaTile's 'magic floor' on an existing mezzanine in Northampton in three days — and raised pick rates fivefold across its shared-user eFulfilment operation.
Wincanton · Northampton, UK · 9 June 2026
Wincanton's own research put numbers on a problem the whole sector could feel: 83% of UK retailers were planning for order volume growth, and 89% feared that growth would outrun their ability to fulfil orders.
Wincanton needed a high-density, fast-retrieval handling system for the mid-market eCommerce brands in its shared-user operation — and it needed one that would go into an existing facility without structural modifications or disruption to the live site.
VersaTile, a spin-off from automation manufacturer Tharsus, takes the idea of an autonomous mobile robot and turns it on its back: a modular field of moving tiles that shifts totes concurrently, like a sliding puzzle, to bring goods directly to pickers in a tote-to-person flow.
The deployment was deliberately simple. The tiles went onto an existing mezzanine floor at the Northampton distribution centre, and the physical layout took three days to set up. Wincanton then built its own integration software using its in-house Development Framework, connecting VersaTile to its existing warehouse management systems.
The Northampton deployment showed that self-learning modular automation can go into existing supply chain infrastructure — an ordinary mezzanine, a live shared-user site — in days, and pay for the disruption it didn't cause with a step change in pick rates.
“The investment transforms productivity in our eFulfilment operations.”
“VersaTile is an exceptional technology for solving warehouse space and labour pressures.”
A walkthrough takes less than an hour and gives you a real indication of what the system could do in your facility.