The Material Handling Blog

In this fast-paced industry where customers are looking for the fastest delivery and using multiple channels to complete their purchases, brands need to be nonstop active. Today, almost all consumers check reviews and compare prices both online and offline before making a purchase.

Du concept à la réalité de la micro-exécution, Decathlon et Bastian Solutions ont collaboré pour créer un système de micro-exécution en magasin en contact avec les clients. « L'objectif de Decathlon était de créer un nouveau parcours client unique et amélioré en supprimant idéalement les tâches sans valeur ajoutée pour le personnel », a déclaré Diba Aleagha, responsable des opérations et du commerce électronique pour Decathlon Canada.

Bringing products as close and as fast as possible to customers triggered a new way of looking at fulfillment centers. In addition to large regional warehouses, microfulfillment centers (MFCs) are popular topics in retail, ecommerce and food industries. Before implementing any solution, it’s key to carefully review applications and properly prepare for current and future scenarios. This step can help you avoid key mistakes and select the right technology. The last thing you want to do is to install a technology that doesn’t do the job the way you expected or needed.

Transform warehouse operations to achieve smarter, more accurate, 24/7 order fulfillment with piece picking robotic solutions carefully integrated to support existing workflows and flexible enough to easily grow for future business volume, products, seasonality and new functions. Download this Infographic to learn more.

We talked to Khurshed B. Mirza, OPEX Warehouse Automation Director for the APAC region, for a deeper insight on the technology and future of DC automation development. OPEX is a warehouse automation leader in the US and is progressively rolling out these technologies to the EU and APAC regions. “There is no single point of failure in our equipment,” says Khurshed B. Mirza. “OPEX solutions have in-built redundancy that results in a significantly higher machine uptime than competitive solutions. OPEX solutions also consume significantly less electric energy when they run due to cutting edge environmental sustainability innovation.”

The question for today’s modern warehouses is no longer when should we automate, but how and where do we automate for the best impact? To help sort through these cutting-edge offerings, we’ve created a quick visual guide to understanding the basics of goods to person systems, including the different types, their benefits and important factors to consider. View the full-size infographic.

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. Opened in June 2020, the facility became “a beacon of hope” for PUMA’s North America ecommerce retail distribution. Bastian Solutions worked closely with PUMA, AutoStore and NFI/Cal Cartage to design, integrate and install an on-time, on-budget automation system that not only helped PUMA meet the accelerated demand but will also provide them room, as planned, to continue to grow their business. “I think more than just the tangible product, of it being on time and on budget what it really gave the company, in terms of this aspirational push forward of the future, it really was like a beacon of hope in a lot of ways,” said Bob Philion, President of PUMA North America.

“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.

Richelieu souhaite améliorer la satisfaction des 90 000 clients et plus qu’ils servent au Canada et aux États-Unis en exécutant les commandes de façon plus rapide et fiable. À titre d’importateur, de distributeur et de fabricant de matériel spécialisé de calibre mondial, Richelieu gère plus de 130 000 UGS. En plus d’une approche qui vise à uniformiser et à accélérer l’exécution des commandes, Richelieu a été en mesure de consolider le stockage externe en tirant profit de ses installations à Montréal. Elle s’est tournée vers Bastian Solutions pour obtenir des conseils et pour mettre en place la bonne combinaison de technologie d’automatisation pour augmenter la durée de vie de l’installation de Richelieu et mettre en place un système qui l’aide à maintenir de façon constante un service à la clientèle de grande qualité.

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.

Dynamic and easily scalable, goods to person technologies have risen to the forefront of order fulfillment conversation amid rapid ecommerce growth. Answering the challenge of automation for various industry applications and operation sizes, Scallog’s order fulfillment system adds a mobile robotic solution to the mix. Announced late last year, Bastian Solutions, an independent integrator, has added Scallog’s technology to our growing portfolio of automation capabilities. We talked to Olivier Rochet, founder and president of Scallog, for a deeper insight on the technology and future of DC automation development. This French robotic automation system manufacturer, already installed in six countries, offers a goods to person technology based on robots that move shelves around the warehouse.

The internet, since its adoption in the 1990s, is an amazing place that consistently opens new doors and creates new opportunities. Business models continue to adapt to our new connected reality. Increasingly, consumers are working their way up the supply chain. Retailers first felt this push as customers are happy to cut brick and mortar stores out of their daily routine and make purchases directly from the warehouse through digital storefronts. This has led to the development and dominance of omnichannel distribution models, delivering a variety of goods and brands under one company. They are required to compete with online-only retailers like Amazon. This was a dramatic shift for the distribution center.