Daifuku is building Nojima sorting around SOTR-S lanes

Daifuku Square records Nojima Corporation introducing SOTR-S at the Misato Distribution Center in Saitama Prefecture. Nojima opened the Misato facility in 2022 after its Yokohama logistics site had been handling distribution for all stores, and by September 2024 it operated 242 digital electronics stores centered on the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The Misato site is a store-replenishment logistics node rather than a demonstration cell. It sits about half a kilometer from a major expressway interchange, and Nojima needed automation that could fit into the area where manual sorting was already being done. The constraint was compact sortation inside an existing operational footprint.

SOTR-S uses a two-level structure with vehicles running on vertically stacked lanes, allowing Nojima to install 62 chutes in a compact area. Staff scan a product barcode at the input station and place the product on a vehicle tray; the vehicle then moves along the track and sorts the item into the correct chute.

The design gave Nojima more channels in a smaller footprint than the slide-shoe alternative it considered. Daifuku Profile 2026 records FY2025 net sales of 660.7 billion yen and 11,417 employees, with 7,014 outside Japan, putting the Misato installation inside one of the world's largest material-handling automation suppliers.

The competitive field includes BEUMER, Vanderlande, Dematic, Interroll, Fives, Honeywell Intelligrated, SSI Schaefer, and compact sortation systems built around trays, chutes, pouch systems, or autonomous mobile robots. Daifuku's distinction in this case is compact multi-lane sortation for store replenishment where footprint and chute count define the buying constraint.

The proof boundary is operating output at Misato. Public material does not disclose throughput per hour, SOTR-S uptime, sorting error rate, payback period, labor savings, or whether Nojima expanded automation into large-appliance workflows after the installation.

If SOTR-S lets Nojima increase store-route sortation without expanding the manual sorting footprint, Daifuku gains a compact retail distribution case for customers that need more destinations inside limited space. The strategic value is density at the sorting layer: more chutes, shorter movement, and less dependence on manual consolidation.

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