The Material Handling Blog

Designed for agility and growth, PUMA’s new Indianapolis distribution center was immediately put to the test facing unprecedented ecommerce demand in addition to new, unexpected safety measures.

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.

“Quite frankly, we were gonna burst.” Sports company PUMA was not only quickly outgrowing their primary U.S. ecommerce distribution center in California, they were also facing increasing pressures in the rapidly evolving and growing North America ecommerce retail market. And, this was prior to the rapid ecommerce growth triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking to reach their east coast customers faster and more efficiently, a new automated warehouse was planned and opened in 2020 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

With continuing growth in ecommerce sales and mobile device usage, companies will need to master the art of fulfillment in minutes to meet same-day delivery requests.

By now, we all know the headache that is the world of grocery ecommerce. Between a global pandemic, supply chain issues, product shortages and changing consumer demands, many grocers are scrambling to make the best decision for their customers and their bottom line. The industry transitioning from “how a grocer is going to automate the instore fulfillment process?” to “how are they going to optimize the whole process, including last mile delivery?” Brick Meets Click data showed that online grocery sales for pickup or delivery were $6.6 billion in April of this year. That’s down from the $7.1 billion in grocery e-commerce sales in March of this year, but up from $5.3 billion in April 2020. Reducing the labor spend for filling orders in the store is the first step; what follows is a strategy that can help reduce the overall cost of getting orders into the hands of customers, regardless of the hand-off location. Being a high-volume and low-margin industry, grocers need microfulfillment automation and technologies that are proven, scalable, dense, fast AND have a quick, high return on investment, like these:

There’s no question that online grocery ordering is here to stay. Access to fresh produce, milk, eggs, toilet paper and many more grocery items isn’t changing. However, the process by which those products get delivered to the consumer from distribution centers – that is being re-envisioned to meet changing consumer demands. And, with that come new challenges, technologies and strategies. Let’s first look back at history.

Serving more than 80,000 customers in both Canada and the United States, Richelieu aimed to increase customer satisfaction with faster, reliable order fulfillment. As an international importer, distributor and manufacturer of specialty hardware, Richelieu manages over 110,000 SKUs. In addition to a faster and more streamlined order fulfillment approach, Richelieu was able to consolidate external storage by leveraging their Montreal facility. They looked to Bastian Solutions to advise and implement the right combination of automation technology to add to Richelieu’s facility longevity and implement a system that helps them reliably maintain strong customer service.

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.

The amount of new technologies emerging to support distribution and supply chain automation is also rapidly increasing; and for good reason.

Now with access to 75% of the U.S. population with 2-day ground service, Knipper can deliver product to customers faster, thus increasing customer satisfaction, creating unique opportunities, and greater specialization in direct to physician fulfillment.

Era sólo cuestión de tiempo para que los proveedores logísticos, los integradores y las diferentes empresas multinacionales empezaran a buscar maneras de aprovechar esta tecnología.

Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are transforming the way manufacturing and distribution centers operate. They are easier than ever to integrate into your operations and are currently seeing a significant boost in adoption.