stationary hub | Bace

A modular locker open to all major carriers and most uses, cutting an owner’s payback from 3–5 years to, in some cases, under 12 months.

problem

A parcel locker earns its keep through utilisation: every door that opens and closes earns the owner money. A locker tied to one logistics provider is never fully used. On top of that, the market sells separate lockers for luggage, for returns, even for padel courts. Each of those inefficiencies means a dearer, less-used product for the client.

solution

A modular locker that is genuinely agnostic: compatible with all major logistics providers and adaptable to several uses. The modular architecture lets customers configure a locker to their needs without the cost or delay of a bespoke design. That flexibility shortens the payback period from the typical 3–5 years to, in some cases, under 12 months.

A one-off prototype became a production-ready locker in 9 months: mechanical design, supplier coordination, DFMEA and testing, through to bolting the first one down in Dortmund.

By the time the project started, demand for an agnostic parcel locker had already been proven in a pilot. The job was to take the MVP, fold in the pilot feedback and turn it into a manufacturable, market-ready product: refining the mechanical design, running an international supply chain with partners in China and Germany, and assembling electronics in-house to keep development moving.

The engineering centred on safety, reliability and long-term performance. A DFMEA was used to find and manage design risks systematically. Testing mixed formal verification with practical validation, from certified trials at TÜV SÜD to in-house endurance tests such as cycling the locker doors 10,000 times. When the test equipment is out of reach, it gets done by hand.

The work stayed hands-on to the end, through the first full installation in Dortmund in August 2025. The photos below show the team completing that setup. Installing it in person showed how the product really behaves and assembles, and those lessons are built into the first customer units.

role: Project lead, contracted by Bace
year: 2025
timeframe: 9 months
tools: Fusion 360, Notion
category: design for manufacture