Warehouse Automation for 3PLs
Why Adoption is Slower Than you Might Expect Introduction We are moving more goods from warehouses to consumers than ever before. And the more e-com replaces brick-and-mortar, physical commerce, the…
Why Adoption is Slower Than you Might Expect Introduction We are moving more goods from warehouses to consumers than ever before. And the more e-com replaces brick-and-mortar, physical commerce, the…
There is a fundamental principle in warehouse automation. And yet, it seems to be poorly understood by many professionals, including logistics engineers, whose job it is to design automated warehouses.…
A Collection of Nonsense Terms and Concepts In the world of logistics, there are a lot of terms and concepts that are completely useless, yet seem to be ubiquitous. You…
Most people in logistics know about Pareto charts and ABC analysis. Some people in logistics know how to read a Pareto chart and how to derive conclusions for the planning of…
Jungheinrich officially unveiled its PowerCube goods-to-person (GtP) order picking system at Logimat 2022 in Stuttgart. This makes Jungheinrich – an established brand name in warehouse equipment – the latest member…
Sometimes, we see companies with fantastic products – and they fail commercially. Sometimes, we see companies with fantastic products, and they can even solve real problems for real customers – and yet, they fail commercially. Now, there is certainly no shortage of reasons why companies can fail commercially in spite of having fantastic products, and I will not attempt to enumerate and discuss them here. Instead, I would like to highlight only one very specific reason which in my opinion often remains neglected, or even unnoticed altogether: competitors or substitutes that are good enough. Good enough is a very powerful concept. I claim that having a product that is good enough is often preferable to having a product that is superior. Let’s have a look at three examples of products or systems in the warehouse automation industry that are failing to meet commercial expectations through the lenses of “good enough”.
In this article, we want to explore the combination of goods-to-person (GtP) picking systems with zone picking systems. This particular solution design will be discussed in the context of high-performance picking requirements – systems that will have to cope with strong customer demand, i.e., several thousand orderlines per hour. Combining GtP picking with zone picking counts as advanced solution design; it is nothing a warehouse operator should aim for with a warehouse automation provider with no prior experience with that solution design. First, we will look into the reasons as to why you combine these two picking systems (as opposed to just using one). Then, we will discuss control aspects of this solution. Finally, we will explore if there are restrictions with respect to the choice of the specific automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) one would use to power the GtP picking system.
Having worked with a number of online supermarkets in the past couple of years, I found that there are two strategic approaches to making eGrocery operations profitable. And which one…
Zone picking systems (often called zone routing systems) have been around for decades. And yet, it seems they are being underappreciated these days. Part of the reason might be that…
In this article, I investigate the use of conventional single-level shuttle systems for goods-to-person picking of grocery items in e-com. I will explain why this particular type of automated storage…