The Material Handling Blog

When we think about material handling automation, we often picture large-scale systems requiring significant capital and time investments. Yet, small-scale integrations can deliver transformative results for targeted challenges, offering a path to efficiency that many organizations overlook. Entry-level automation can substantially improve efficiency, accuracy, and scalability—all without overhauling the entire operation and minimizing the risk to the business. These solutions are about doing more with what you have, like incorporating carton flow racking to streamline picking or ergonomic packing stations to enhance worker efficiency, unlocking untapped potential, and preparing for future growth.

Imagine this: Your Fulfillment Director tasks you with specifying a new sorter and conveyor system capable of doubling current capacities. Where do you begin? Conveyor and sortation systems are engineered solutions. Like most engineering challenges, the solution's effectiveness hinges on the quality of its inputs. Accurate, detailed data ensures the system is tailored to your specific business requirements and product specifications.

Labor and resource planning has always been a moving target. Even the most well-run warehouse or fulfillment center can struggle to match staffing levels with demand. When the right people aren’t available at the right time, delays stack up, costs rise, and service levels slip. Operations teams are up against a familiar set of challenges like fluctuating order volumes, high turnover, and inefficient workflows that create bottlenecks. In the 2024 MHI Annual Industry Report, more than half of material handling leaders cite talent shortages—hiring and retaining qualified workers—as one of their biggest challenges, ranking it as very or extremely difficult to manage. Scaling up often means adding temporary workers or increasing overtime, but that’s not a sustainable strategy. How work is structured and allocated has just as much impact on efficiency as the number of workers on the floor. Material handling automation provides a way to stabilize operations, improve labor efficiency, and optimize resources without relying on constant hiring cycles. But before looking at the solutions, it’s important to understand where the biggest inefficiencies emerge and why workforce planning remains a challenge.

Your warehouse is running smoothly until an unexpected spike in orders disrupts fulfillment. A key shipment misses its deadline, triggering customer frustration, refunds, and cancellations. The delay escalates into a chain reaction of operational issues, leading to financial penalties, lost revenue, and reputational damage. Warehouse staff scramble to recover lost time, but the ripple effect reaches customer service teams, supply chain planners, and even corporate leadership. What should have been a routine fulfillment process turns into a costly and disruptive challenge.

E-commerce and retail are evolving fast, and small to medium-sized businesses are at the center of that growth. The U.S. alone is home to nearly 14 million e-commerce sites, accounting for 53% of all online retail sites globally. As more businesses move online, the competition to fulfill orders quickly and efficiently intensifies. In fact, small and medium-sized businesses expect their e-commerce sales to grow year-over-year. With growth comes challenges: How do you fulfill rising order volumes quickly and accurately without adding more labor or expanding physical space? Large-scale warehouse automation has long been the answer for enterprise operations, but for smaller businesses, automation has often felt out of reach—too complex, too expensive, and too overwhelming. That’s changing.

When Maurice’s, a women’s retail fashion brand, set out to reimagine its distribution strategy, it turned to GEODIS, a global leader in third-party logistics, to bring its vision to life. Tasked with designing and managing a 404,000-square-foot omnichannel distribution center, GEODIS needed a fulfillment system that could handle retail replenishment, direct-to-consumer shipping, and buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) orders—all while keeping up with rising customer expectations and order volumes. To tackle these challenges, GEODIS sought a solution to deliver high-throughput capabilities and adapt to future growth. Their search led them to AutoStore, a proven order fulfillment technology, and Bastian Solutions, a trusted integrator with extensive experience in implementing automated systems. Through this collaboration, GEODIS and Bastian Solutions created a cutting-edge distribution center that balances speed, flexibility, and efficiency. With AutoStore at its core, the facility is equipped to meet the demands of today’s fast-paced retail logistics environment while remaining ready to scale for what’s ahead.

When designing a material handling automation solution, success often comes down to choosing the right pieces that fit together seamlessly. That’s the value of working with an experienced integrator: finding the optimal combination of technologies to meet your operational goals.

As retail e-commerce continues to evolve, the pressure to adapt and scale efficiently has never been greater. Companies must meet increasing consumer demand while grappling with real estate constraints, workforce shortages, and fluctuating order volumes. Flexibility is critical in an industry where fast, efficient delivery can make or break customer loyalty. For one leading specialty retailer, keeping up with this dynamic environment required a quick fix and a long-term growth strategy. Since 2014, their partnership with Bastian Solutions has helped them stay ahead of these challenges. From optimizing their distribution center (DC) to managing the complexities of fulfillment and seasonal demand, Bastian provided the right mix of expertise and technology to help them scale without unnecessary overhead.

In today's dynamic business landscape, companies face numerous external challenges such as ever-expanding competitive landscapes, supply chain issues and changing customer demands. To overcome these and improve their internal processes, businesses are increasingly adopting TOC (Theory of Constraints) principles. This blog presents a compelling real-world application of TOC at one of the world's leading home appliance suppliers. This case study not only underscores the effectiveness of TOC but also provides practical insights on how these principles can significantly boost operational efficiency.

You’re walking into a bustling warehouse, where the air buzzes with the orchestrated hum of voices, footfalls and equipment. In one corner, various SKUs are received and swiftly stored, each item finding its place. Across the floor, synchronized activity surrounds order fulfillment: items are picked, packed and ready for their journey to customers or stores. This is material flow and it plays a vital role in distribution operations.

All inbound and outbound warehouse operations such as receiving, putaway, picking or packing, for example, formulate a series of dependent events. These events occur in sequence and are, to some extent, interlinked to the events preceding or following them.

Order fulfillment operations play a crucial role in today's fast-paced world, where customers expect their orders to be processed and delivered quickly and accurately. With the increasing demand for seamless and efficient order fulfillment services, businesses are turning to innovative solutions to meet the needs of their customers. One such solution is the use of robotic buffer systems.

Sin duda alguna, el “microfulfillment” es un concepto que se está volviendo tendencia dentro de los esquemas de cadena de suministro. La habilidad de llevar productos a las manos de los consumidores más rápido que cualquier competidor es el objetivo último, así que, no sólo es una tendencia actual, si no que ha evolucionado en una estrategia de descentralización a través de la cual los productores buscan mejorar la experiencia de los consumidores. Entonces, ¿cómo se define?

It’s no secret that, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, foot traffic in brick-and-mortar stores has seen a dramatic decrease. Recent reports show a slight increase and recovery but it is becoming increasingly clear that online shopping is the way of the future. How are businesses responding to this trend and what does this mean for parcel shipments?

Adapting to uncertain markets, goods to person continues to prove to be a robust foundation for distribution center operations that can grow and adapt.

O Diretor de Fulfillment atribui a você um projeto para especificar um novo sistema de triagem e transportador capaz de "dobrar" as capacidades atuais. Por onde começar? Primeiro, comece entendendo e desafiando a verdadeira triagem e os requisitos do sistema. Os sistemas de transporte e triagem são soluções projetadas. Como a maioria dos problemas de engenharia, a solução geralmente é tão boa quanto suas entradas.

In today’s global market – facing an acceleration in ecommerce and managing the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic – flexibility is not only key, but a necessity. The flexibility to scale up or down and use automation where it fits best in order to help to maintain a leading edge in the industry markets. Facilitating greater speed, agility and adaptability in warehouse distribution and order fulfillment, Tompkins Robotics’ solutions are designed to allow customers to be more successful in dynamically changing environments. In 2019, Bastian Solutions added Tompkins Robotics’ autonomous mobile robot (AMRs) solution to our growing portfolio of automation capabilities. We talked to Mike Futch, the CEO and President of Tompkins Robotics, for a deeper insight on the technology and future of DC automation development.

In many distribution centers, timely order fulfillment relies on operators having access to empty boxes so that they can quickly complete their picks. This is often completed by building a box and then delivering it to the operator within the pick module. The question is – “What is the best way to get the box from the box erector to the operator?”

Put walls aren’t new but their many operational benefits continue to stand out and help drive distribution center efficiencies, despite some common drawbacks. For companies with high order commonality and batch picking, put walls can easily have a dramatic impact to picking labor. Put walls are simply shelving units with several cubbies of the same or varying sizes, dependent on the orders being processed. Modern units have light indicators at the front and back of the wall to help direct operators to pick and put items.

Pick, pack and ship is fairly straightforward but with increasing pressures to process orders faster and faster, these tasks can give your company a competitive edge.

As industrial robotic technology has improved over the years, so has related simulation software. So much so, that a majority of the upfront programming for a robotic system is typically now completed in simulation software first before being implemented in a physical robot. The sophisticated software programs used for robotic simulations replicate real world robotic conditions within a 3D virtual environment. These tools allow for detailed customization providing a reliably clear view of how a robot will operate before its built and integrated. This gives customers peace of mind of how their investment will support their operations.

Scalability and flexibility are no doubt the focus of today and the future in distribution and production. Utilizing bins, bots and ports, the AutoStore goods to person technology brings a grid-based approach that allows customers to shrink their storage space exponentially while increasing their capacity for smarter, faster operations. Working together since 2013, last year Bastian Solutions expanded its portfolio of global partners with AutoStore to further support customers wherever they may be, providing them increased capacity, flexibility and accuracy.

Every warehouse operation has unique challenges. When considering third-party logistics, it's important to have a thorough understanding of the entire operation.

After Amazon acquired Kiva Systems, these look-alike vendors have copied and expanded on the fetch & carry, goods-to-person fulfillment method.

With the growth in e-commerce, the demand for split case picking order fulfillment systems has never been higher. Here's Part 3 of our Beginner's Guide: Considerations for Choosing a Split Case Picking System Design

With the growth in e-commerce, the demand for split case picking order fulfillment systems has never been higher. Here's Part 2 of our Beginner's Guide: Options for Designing a Split Case Picking System Read: Split Case Picking Systems: A Beginner’s Guide, Part 2

With the growth in e-commerce, the demand for split case picking order fulfillment systems has never been higher. Here's Part 1 of our Beginner's Guide: What Is Split Case Picking? Read: Split Case Picking Systems: A Beginner’s Guide, Part 1

Qu'est-ce qui différencie le nouvel AutoStore Black Line? Nous avons préparé un Q&R pour que vous puissiez découvrir les nouveautés et savoir si cela vous convient.

What's different about the new AutoStore Black Line? We've put together a Q&A so you can learn what's new and if it's right for you. Read: AutoStore Black Line: Your Questions Answered

From intelligent modules, to proactive monitoring, and complete data visibility into your operations; Automated Order Routing is a software system that will be the keystone to holding your entire operation together. Read: Automated Order Routing Defined

Never in our lifetimes have we seen such as change in the retail supply chain. The traditional process of regional distribution centers shipping to brick and mortar stores has been significantly altered by online fulfillment from the likes of Amazon.com and an ever-growing list of online retailers.

The ever-increasing need to satisfy customers in the world of order fulfillment is causing the warehouse and distribution industries to consider more efficient and cost-effective solutions to satisfy the need. This has lead many companies to implement, or consider, higher-automation solutions that include goods-to-person technologies. Read: Key Considerations When Designing Goods-to-Person Systems

In order to be best prepared for seasonal peaks such as Black Friday and its potential 10:1 volume spike, distribution leadership must begin looking at how their warehouses are set up.

With increasingly high customer expectations in the world of order fulfillment, many distribution and warehouse managers are searching for ways to improve throughput, accuracy, and efficiency. To help, we need look no further than the best-in-class Goods-to-Person (GTP) technologies that are changing the face of order fulfillment.

You know what your operation needs: a better, faster, and more accurate order fulfillment solution. As with most things, however, the order fulfillment process is much more complex and involves people, resources, record keeping, and transportation—all of which require time and management.

The good news is that this long talked about concept has been proven within the last few years. You can hardly be in business anymore without being impacted by the need to deliver only what your customer needs. The days of shipping excess are over and everyone is looking to eliminate waste in their supply chain process.