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.

Nojima’s Misato store-replenishment site is about half a kilometer from a major expressway interchange. The company needed automated sorting to fit into the space used by its existing manual operation.

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.

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