Beyond the shuttle: Why integrated pallet automation delivers more value

Pallet shuttle automation is attracting more attention than ever. For many companies, it offers a compelling answer to some of today’s biggest warehouse challenges: limited space, labour pressure, rising operating costs, energy efficiency, cold storage requirements and the need for more scalable intralogistics solutions. If you are making a significant investment in something as vital to operational efficiency as a pallet shuttle-based automated storage/retrieval system, the wise decision is to procure the entire project through a single-source supplier.

But as interest grows, so does the number of available solutions. Mant appear similar: they look much the same, they appear to do the same job. However, to treat a complex shuttle system as a collection of discrete elements that can be mashed together is to invite a world of pain. This may emerge in the form of unscheduled costs, an inability to pre-test and simulate, extended implementation timescales, random lines of code, unaccountable suppliers and unnecessary constraints and inflexibilities imposed by attempts at integration.

In addition, there is the cost of being unable to achieve the performance that the system should theoretically deliver. The buyer also foregoes much of the hard-won expertise and experience that a genuine systems vendor like Movu Robotics, together with racking from stow Group, can offer. This is far more than just robotic shuttles.

A system based around Movu atlas 4-way shuttles offers an emphatic demonstration of this point. All the components that make a four-way automated pallet storage and retrieval system including shuttles, racking and lifts, have been designed and engineered to work with each other and to fully exploit each other’s strengths – not just in the physical interactions of these hardware elements but also in the all-important software and control systems.

Integrated Movu Lift

Importantly, Movu Lift is a unique integrated lift for the Movu atlas, transforming it into a dynamic 3D storage environment by enabling shuttles and their payloads to move effortlessly between levels. The design optimises vertical space and fits seamlessly within the atlas rack to maximise storage density. And because all the elements of the atlas system are specifically made to work together, produced and installed by one manufacturer, quality and function are assured and risk is minimised.

With this kind of shuttle system, the integration is baked in to the original design concepts, with the possible exception of a few peripherals. The customer can therefore treat the system, with confidence, as a ‘smart box’: they define what needs to happen, while Movu’s integrated system determines how to optimise and execute the necessary movements. The customer doesn’t need to know how, or to prompt the system along between multiple interfaces. There is only one software interface through which to integrate with customer systems; everything else is handled within the integrated Movu system.

This integrated system approach encompasses Movu’s unique take on Warehouse Execution Systems (WES), onboard control and analytics. The WES has three principal modules, while analytics provides the visibility and insight needed to monitor, compare and continuously improve system performance.

Movu WES

Movu OPS receives ‘order’ information from customer systems, creates ‘transports’ itself, and converts these into ‘missions' for the shuttles and lifts. It selects the right modes of transport, informed by information such as cycle times and equipment utilisation to avoid bottlenecks and identify improvements in a process of data-driven decision-making and continuous optimisation.

Movu Tower takes these ‘transports’ and created ‘missions’ to assign to the best-placed shuttle or other vehicle, then determines optimal routes. The routes are created to minimise travel times, maximise productivity and reduce warehouse congestion, monitoring and tracking shuttle and other component activities in real time, and making pro-active responses and implementing change management. Tower also plans and controls activities such as battery management.

Meanwhile on-board Movu Pilot executes at individual vehicle level. It controls the movements (motor selection, speeds, pick-ups / drop-offs and so on) of each individual shuttle and relays status and position data to Movu Tower.

Around these three software layers, analytics plays an increasingly important role. Every automated movement generates valuable operational data: cycle times, utilisation, waiting times, bottlenecks, mission flows, exception patterns and system availability. By turning this data into actionable insights, Movu can help customers understand not only whether the system is performing, but also why it is performing in a certain way and where further improvements can be made.

This three-pillar WES is therefore similar in concept to the familiar WES that controls and co-ordinates activities in manual warehouses, but it is designed from the outset for Movu’s automated environment.

So, the customer only has to tell the system the ‘what’ of what is needed – they do not have to worry about the ‘how’. The WES will automatically honour the required protocols – for sequencing if that is important, or to prioritise rush orders, or to send pallets for pallet-load building in ‘heaviest items first’ order, while continuously helping the customer get the maximum value and performance out of the installed system.

Importantly, the level of intelligence built into this integrated approach isn’t a fixed quantity. Movu builds on data, analytics and experience from around 200 Movu atlas projects, continuously refining the decision-making capabilities of the software and taking into account operational patterns across different sectors, layouts and throughput profiles. This allows the system to evolve from simply executing movements to supporting data-driven optimisation over time.

This integrated, single-source approach offers other significant and very tangible benefits. Our experience with multiple different customers in similar market segments, and our understanding of their business needs above and beyond the ‘mere’ physical logistics, means that it is quicker to design, to optimise and modify, and to install systems. Less integration testing is needed (only really for specialised or customised external peripherals) and this we can perform in-house.

Movu has extensive simulation capabilities, from high-level overviews to detailed representations of the impact of unplanned events, such as the late arrival of transport. Because we are in control both of the hardware and software components, and of the implementation process, our customers can have confidence firstly, that the simulation accurately reflects real life performance, and second that the installation is actually implemented in the way it was simulated. This is not always a given where a mix of vendors is involved.

Movu also has extensive analytics capabilities, allowing customer installations to be monitored, evaluated and compared with similar systems, sector benchmarks and historical performance patterns. This makes it possible to identify bottlenecks, validate improvement opportunities and support customers with concrete insights rather than assumptions. Our Experience Centre and over 50 software engineers are also there to support customers in their initial application and further development.

Movu's Experience Center

Movu's 4-way atlas storage and retrieval systems are modular, scaleable and flexible. The same system can manage a facility of 500 pallets or 200,000, which means no warehouse is left behind when it comes to automation. The one-system approach means that the whole integration process doesn’t have to be repeated, with more software tweaks and extra lines of code, each time configuration or requirements change. We can also bring into scope robotics and other technologies.

Meanwhile, although we have said that the customer doesn’t need to concern themselves about the inner workings, different layers of integration are available and if the customer wishes, for example, to handle traffic flows themselves, that can be done.

This is some of what the customer gets from choosing Movu as a single source for a shuttle-based system. Far more than just shuttles, integrated system thinking is the way to extract maximum value from your investment.

What is your view? When evaluating pallet shuttle automation, should customers still start by comparing shuttle specifications — or should the focus shift first to the complete system, integration and long-term accountability behind it?