Evaluate your warehouse automation needs

Why are you considering automation?

Any significant investment should not just patch current difficulties but also shape your future. Are you seeking to cut labour costs? Handle peak demand? Improve customer service? Or future-proof your business model? Clarifying the why behind your automation journey is the first step in evaluating your needs.
 

What is your warehouse like?

The physical characteristics of your facility play a major role in automation. Ask yourself:

• What is the size, shape, and height of the building?

• How much of that space is currently usable?

• Could automation uses odd-shaped areas, reduce aisle widths, or optimise vertical space?

• Are there structural constraints, such as flooring condition, power supply, or obstructive pillars?

As part of your automation needs evaluation, also consider whether a mezzanine could separate manual operations from automated zones.

What do you do in your warehouse?

Examine your processes carefully, they may not operate exactly as you imagine. Key questions include:

• Do you already have ‘islands of automation’?

• What are your core flows: putaway, store, pick, pack, returns?

• What are the labour requirements at average and peak times?

• What are the characteristics of the goods you handle : weights, sizes and any unusual shapes? Are there particular environmental requirements, such as cold chain?

• Which processes will remain largely manual (returns, fragile item picking, removing shrink wrap)?

Also assess your IT backbone: is it paper-based, legacy software, or fully digital with barcodes/RFID? The maturity of your systems will influence how easily automation integrates.

What metrics are you using?

Any evaluation of automation needs depends on reliable data. You’ll need accurate information on:

• Order profiles and volumes

• Fast vs. slow-moving items and throughput rates

• Labour costs

• Service-level performance

This creates the baseline against which automation proposals can be measured.

Where are your pain points?

You may think you know your problem areas, but data often reveals the real bottlenecks. Common pain points include:

• Labour availability and cost control

• Errors and damage

• Customer service pressures (cut-off times, seasonal peaks)

• Handling returns efficiently

Remember: the areas where automation brings the most value may not be those currently causing the loudest complaints.

Can processes be improved before automating?

There’s little point in automating an inefficient workflow. Before investing, take a hard look at processes:

• Can touchpoints and movements be reduced?

• Can procedures be streamlined?

• Can management systems be improved?

This evaluation may reduce the scale and cost of automation required.

Where is your business going?

Automation is a long-term investment, so consider your business trajectory. In five to ten years, will your customer base, sales channels, or product mix change? For example, pallet orders for trade customers may shift to e-commerce parcels with next-day delivery. Nearshoring might alter inventory policies. The company may also enter new markets or categories.

The Board will have expectations and forecasts for business growth but with what confidence level? Think about how much flexibility and scalability will be required from automation. Scalability obviously is desirable if the aim is to grow automation both to match company growth and to cope with peaks of activity without incurring excessive cap-ex. Flexibility reflects the possibility that the nature of the goods being handled may change, as may their processing requirements. There are also conversations to be had about whether the company is prepared to be a ‘leader’, or happier to be a ‘follower’ in technology adoptions, and more generally about its appetite for risk.

Flexibility and scalability must therefore be part of your automation evaluation.

We need to talk about money

Capital expenditure must be justified by return on investment, the faster the better. Entering into automation does not always require a large investment, there are many low capex solutions to explore. Important questions include:

• What financial resources are available?

• What rate of growth are you expecting and over what timescale?

• What ROI period is acceptable?

• Could a step-by-step approach spread costs?

• Are leasing or subscription options viable?

Don’t forget to evaluate where savings will be generated and where transitional costs might arise.

Review appropriate technologies

The automation landscape has expanded rapidly. Options include:

• Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), offering flexible scalability. The ability to add or remove robots according to peak requirements means it is an enormously flexible solution.

• Shuttle-based automated storage and retrieval systems

• Robotic arms or cobots for picking

• Warehouse control software to integrate and optimise flows. Software is a crucial tool for optimising the management, co-ordination and monitoring of technologies to ensure a smooth flow of materials. It will need to integrate with your existing business systems, or possibly these may need upgrading.

Consider to what extent your processes require human operators to work alongside the automation. This can make a big difference to, for example, the use of floor space. Practical, real-world solutions should take priority over futuristic concepts. The right mix depends on your automation needs evaluation.

How to select the right partner

The right partner ensures technology delivers on its promise. Look for:

• End-to-end implementation, from design to service

• Local expertise backed by global support

• A broad portfolio of solutions, not just one product

• Strong service and technical support

While Systems Integrators are suitable for large-scale integrated projects with long lead times and high capex, there are smaller suppliers that offer a single product as a solution to a specific problem. Between these two ends of the spectrum are suppliers that provide a portfolio of sub-systems across many warehouse functions.

Unlike many single-product providers, Movu Robotics is a full service OEM with a complete ecosystem of automated warehouse technologies, integrated seamlessly with racking solutions from stow Group, which is a highly successful company with 40 years’ experience as a supplier of logistics and materials handling solutions. Customers gain the key advantage of seamless integrated racking and robotics solutions.

In addition to suiting large operations, Movu is also the right partner for smaller companies. The company’s philosophy of no warehouse left and its low entry point for automation also provides reliability, accuracy, local understanding of the market, cyber security and supported by a global network in customer service that is not possible for low cost, far shore providers or large scale automation integrators. In this way, Movu brings the opportunities of easier automation and robotics to more warehouses.