Automating your warehouse means navigating a lot of options.
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Which vendor has the technology you need?
Which solution is right for you?
Is this plan going to protect your business and decrease your risk &#; or do the opposite?
To make the right decision for your warehouse, start by having a clear sense of where you&#;re coming from.
ISD partners with our customers to guide them to the automation plan that&#;s right for their specific size, products, customers, budget, and needs.
Here&#;s a set of 5 guiding questions, plus 10 level-down questions to help you make sense of your operations&#; metrics, that we use when exploring automation solutions for our customers.
Once you&#;ve gone through the 5 questions, you&#;ll have a strong sense of what&#;s driving you to automate and what problems you need automation to solve for you.
And if you&#;d like to talk through these automation questions with an automation expert, set up a free call with our team.
1) What problem am I trying to solve?
2) Am I maximizing my current space?
3) Is my inventory right-sized for my operation?
4) Do I have a labor problem?
5) What will be the financial impact on operation improvements?
Making the decision that&#;s right for you
This question is the most important one to consider before implementing warehouse automation. It&#;s asking &#;What is your goal in automating your warehouse?&#;
Based on your answer, your path to automation will follow a different route. The majority of distribution centers considering automation are looking to improve on an existing operation, whether that&#;s by designing the most productive new space or by maximizing their current space.
So what problems are you trying to solve?
Your answer could be:
Sound familiar? Read on for more questions &#; and if you want to talk to an automation partner who knows where you&#;re coming from and is ready to help you find the right solution, talk to our team.
If you&#;re considering automation because you&#;re running out of space, or because you want to reduce your spend on expenses like rent, it&#;s a good idea to take a close look at how you use the space you have.
ISD has helped customers design new greenfield warehouses, but also consolidate two distribution centers into one that could ship more products with a smaller footprint.
More space isn&#;t always the option, but smarter space might be.
Explore whether you&#;re maximizing your current space by asking:
To go through those questions with an ISD operations expert, for free, schedule a consultation today.
If you have years&#; worth of inventory taking up all your storage space, automating your distribution center won&#;t solve your problem. For that, you need to improve your procurement process.
To understand and improve inventory, apply the 80/20 rule. 20% of products should drive 80% of profit. What are your highest-margin, highest-performing SKUs? How are you improving those for volume and profitability, and reducing the amount of low-performing SKUs that take up outsized space?
To answer this question, you&#;ll need to know:
An operations engineer at ISD can help you go through this information and more. We start every engagement with a research project, where we dive deep on the specifics of your warehouse operation. Talk to an expert today.
Wages keep rising. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that wages and salaries went up 5.1% in and 4.3% in .
But it&#;s not just that it&#;s expensive to pay workers. It&#;s also hard to find them.
Per the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, hiring rates are outpacing quit rates, but companies can&#;t keep up. That&#;s especially true in industries where work can&#;t be done in a remote or hybrid setting. In transportation and warehousing, 80+% of work is done fully on site.
If you&#;re having trouble finding qualified labor, automation can help by reducing the manual labor needed to get shipments out the door. Instead of a bigger pool of pickers and packers, you&#;ll have a smaller pool of trained operators who interface with technology that does the majority of the heavy lifting.
Consider these statistics from ISD case studies:
Distribution centers aren&#;t cost centers &#; they&#;re profit generators.
That&#;s true, but it requires looking at operations in the way that C-suite leaders do: as an opportunity to retain more money.
By optimizing your operation, you can reduce your number of returns and negative customer experiences.
Looking just at errors &#; not the lost customer value of disappointing a customer who never comes back &#; the lost profit is staggering.
Errors cost you $50 each on the low end, and $300 each on the high end.
If automation can get you from a 98.9% order success rate to 99.2%, that 0.3% of improvement is saving a warehouse with 5,000 orders a day from making 15 unnecessary errors each day.
At an average cost of $175/error, that&#;s $78,750 of profit regained each month.
Improvements like that will pay for automation many times over.
Warehouse automation is a big decision. It requires financial investment, time, focus, and trust.
If you want to learn more, please visit our website automated storage racks.
At ISD, we&#;re ready to get started on designing the automation roadmap that&#;s right for you. Our product-agnostic approach means we don&#;t start with ready-made solutions. We start by listening, understanding, and putting your needs first.
Let&#;s build the warehouse of tomorrow together. Talk now.
June 17,
Connect with Clayton Everhart on LinkedIn
This article is part of our SME Corner, offering insights from our subject matter experts to guide you on your warehouse automation journey.
Automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) have become a crucial part of modern supply chains, boosting efficiency and accuracy while enabling businesses to move labor to higher value tasks. However, successful implementation requires careful planning, strategic alignment, and meticulous execution.
In this article, we&#;ll share essential steps and best practices for implementing ASRS in your warehouse. We&#;ll cover everything from understanding your business case and aligning with company strategy to defining success criteria and avoiding scope creep. Read on for insights on how to navigate the complexities of warehouse automation and achieve the best results.
To effectively work with ASRS solution providers and design a system that best meets your needs, it&#;s essential to ensure internal alignment with key stakeholders before exploring solution options. Here are the critical areas your business should align on from the outset:
Understand Your Business Case: This involves delving into the reasons behind implementing warehouse automation. It&#;s crucial to assess the business case for the project, which may include factors like improving operational efficiency, reducing costs, enhancing accuracy, or meeting peak season demand more effectively. By understanding these drivers, you can pick the right ASRS solution to address your specific needs.
Align with Company Strategy: Warehouse automation initiatives should align with the broader strategic goals and objectives of your business. For example, if your company&#;s strategy is focused on rapid expansion, the automation solution should support scalability. On the other hand, if the goal is to add or expand a new channel, like e-commerce, your solution will likely require high throughput each picking capability.
Define Success Criteria: Success criteria should be clearly defined to measure the effectiveness of warehouse automation efforts. This involves establishing company metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) related to factors like productivity, order accuracy, inventory turnover, and labor utilization. Setting specific targets and objectives ensures clarity of purpose and helps maintain focus during the solution design process.
Minimize Scope Creep and Change Orders: It&#;s not unlikely for automation projects to expand beyond their original scope, which leads to increased costs and delays. To mitigate this risk, it&#;s important to establish clear boundaries and specifications for the automation project from the outset. It&#;s essential to clarify the design parameters and assumptions underlying the project. This includes considerations like the types of products (SKUs), order profiles, and fulfillment channels that will be affected by automation. By defining these parameters upfront, you can reduce the risk of scope creep and ensure that the automation solution meets the specific needs of your business.
A pivotal step in your warehouse automation journey is ensuring you have all the necessary data and information to share with solution providers. The goal here is to ensure that the automation provider has a clear understanding of your business&#; needs, goals, and constraints, enabling the development of a tailored automation solution that meets your business&#; requirements effectively. This is typically a challenge as it requires a high degree of strategic alignment, planning, and execution across various departments. Here&#;s our comprehensive guide to help you achieve success.
Be prepared to share detailed insights into your current processes, workflows, and pain points within the warehouse. Clearly articulate the specific requirements and challenges that the ASRS needs to address, including the following:
Inventory Data:
Order Data:
Process Data:
Performance Metrics:
It is imperative to assess the compatibility of the automation solution with your existing technology infrastructure, including warehouse management systems (WMS), enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and network architecture. Additionally, evaluating security and data integration requirements is crucial to ensure seamless and secure operation. This includes:
Infrastructure Data:
Integration Requirements:
Security Requirements:
Data Management:
Thoroughly evaluate the financial aspects of the automation project, including conducting a cost-benefit analysis and determining budget allocation and funding options. This ensures that the project aligns with your financial objectives and constraints, making it feasible and sustainable. This includes:
Be prepared to evaluate whether the proposed solution complies with your business&#;s safety regulations, industry standards, and internal policies. Be ready to share the following details with solution providers:
Once you&#;ve established a clear direction for implementing an ASRS and gathered the appropriate data and information it&#;s time to get into the fun of the automation selection process. Selecting the right ASRS for your warehouse operations involves a thorough understanding of both your current requirements and future objectives. The process of navigating through the myriad of solution providers can be daunting. To aid in this decision, consider these crucial functional factors when comparing solutions:
To implement the ASRS in a brownfield facility while maintaining order fulfillment, a comprehensive renovation plan is essential. While your solution provider can assist in developing this plan, the critical input must come from your internal teams. This plan should include the following key elements:
Dedicated Staging Area: Allocate a specific area for staging and assembling the new automation equipment. This ensures organized and efficient installation.
Clear Access Routes: Plan for unobstructed access routes to transport the equipment to its final location within the warehouse. This will facilitate smooth and safe movement of large and heavy components.
Temporary Storage Solutions: Ensure there is sufficient temporary storage space for current inventory and materials displaced during the renovation. This will help maintain order and prevent disruptions in operations.
Continuity Plan: Develop a detailed plan to continue operations during the renovation. This might involve alternative workflows to ensure that order fulfillment remains uninterrupted.
The Skypod System offers the optimal mix of performance and flexibility for future-proof order fulfillment operations
The Exotec® Skypod system is a mobile ASRS offering the optimal mix of performance and flexibility. It utilizes autonomous mobile robots to store goods in high-density racks and deliver them to ergonomic picking stations. With up to 5X storage density and throughput compared to manual operations and retrieval time of under two minutes for any item within the system, it meets the demands for even the tightest service level agreements with immediate access to all SKUs.
Our modular system decouples throughput from storage, ensuring industry-leading flexibility. Thus, increasing throughput doesn&#;t require a proportional increase in storage, preventing unnecessary equipment spending. Additionally, the system is channel-agnostic, serving both B2B and B2C orders seamlessly with both case and piece picking capabilities.
With our advanced tools, we can dimension a Skypod system tailored to your current operations and future growth projections within minutes. By creating multiple variations of systems designed for predicted growth over time, we ensure your operations remain efficient and adapt seamlessly into the unpredictable future. We offer complete transparency on pricing, bill of materials, and performance metrics, ensuring our customers are fully informed every step of the way.
Want more information on rack supported warehouse? Feel free to contact us.