Autostore

Ergonomic fulfilment of ambient food and general merchandise orders from a national distribution centre.

Concept
  • Product transferred from bulk highbay store and decanted into multiple modular storage bins.
  • Robots locate and fetch bins from the dynamic storage system and deliver relevant bins to Picking ports.
  • Pickers select cases or single units to simultaneously fulfil batches of multiple store orders.
  • Any surplus produce in Storage bins is returned to the grid, or empty bins assigned for replenishment.
  • Ergonomic, high accuracy, improved space utilisation & better productivity than manual/traditional process.

Challenge

Space efficient and modular goods to person solution to replace legacy manual picking process. 
System to be constructed, tested and integrated into a "live" distribution centre, operating at full capacity.
Requirement to increase overall warehouse capacity (both storage and throughput) by building system above existing manual operation.
Mandatory improvement in pick accuracy and stock availability.
New system and inventory controls to be integrated seamlessly into existing warehouse processes.

Value

Benefits of project 

Replacement of legacy manual picking process with goods to man operation, offering enhanced accuracy and productivity.
New robot grid system enabled modular build to defer capital investment.
Simple integration to existing depot processes enabled migration of existing operation in a controlled and phased manner.
New facility increased Supply chain ability to support both range and throughput growth.
Productivity for smaller cube items rose by more than 100% with a pick accuracy of 99.8%
Improved ergonomics for both receiving and picking processes increased productivity and H&S metrics, enabling higher number of simultaneous orders being picked by each Colleague.
Additional Cost benefits of reduced energy bills, higher fulfilment accuracy, better cube utilisation in Customer totes, better transport density.
Ability to operate a 24/7 process and seamlessly add incremental capacity at later date.
Concept and Realisation videos