Warehouse managers face immense pressure to fulfill rising order volumes quickly and accurately. Adopting warehouse automation is the best thing you can do to handle these challenges, and the pathway to get there is lit well, thanks to those who have automated before.
Follow these nine stops on the road to warehouse automation success to take your processes from manual to automated for optimized order fulfillment, happier associates, and more.
1. Know your current operations inside and out
Before deploying warehouse automation, It’s critical to objectively assess every aspect of your existing workflows to see what’s working and what’s not. Document every step, measure cycle times, and identify any and all bottlenecks. Known warehouse pain points like repetitive tasks, order picking, and inventory management are prime automation targets. Since you can’t improve what you don’t understand, take a look at your whole warehouse operations first. You should also track productivity metrics now (if you aren’t already) so you’ll have them for comparison post-automation.
2. Define your automation objectives
Automating your warehouse without a strategy in place is just asking for trouble. Clearly define the goals you want to achieve via automation, and be specific — having a goal to “improve warehouse efficiency,” while important, is too vague.
Instead, set measurable targets like:
- Increase picking speed by …%
- Cut training time by …%
- Reduce shipping errors by …%
Let your objectives guide your technology selection process and implementation roadmap.
3. Choose systems that align with your goals
With the market full of conveyors, pickers, sorters, and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), it’s no wonder that analysis paralysis is so common with all these options. It’s essential to select warehouse automation technologies that directly address your needs.
If speed is critical, flexible AMRs can get your warehouse moving quicker than ever. Battling high turnover? Easy-to-learn robotics could help slash training requirements and encourage retention of your existing labor force.
Define your must-have capabilities upfront to narrow options.
4. Plan for all implementation and operating costs
Any warehouse manager who has deployed automation knows that it can require serious capital expenditure — unless you choose a solution that is offered “as a service” like a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) solution.
With RaaS, your facility’s automation costs shift from capital expenses (CapEx), which refers to major purchases that you plan to use for years, to day-to-day operational expenses (OpEx). The minimal initial investment means a simpler budget approval process and dramatically shortens your time to return on investment (ROI) from years to months.
Determine all potential warehouse automation costs upfront, including:
- Initial hardware/software purchase
- Facility renovation needs, if any
- Integration with existing infrastructure
- Employee training programs
Crunch the numbers to prove automation’s long-term ROI, accounting for future growth. Get buy-in from finance stakeholders early.
5. Involve your full warehouse team from the start
Nothing stalls a technology implementation like reluctant users, from warehouse managers to associates and more. The way to get your project on the right track is to include and communicate with all of your employees from the start. Invite input on warehouse automation from associates to address any concerns that may be floating around.
Provide your associates with specific examples why automation is essential for efficiency and job growth, including that it will help to upskill them instead of replacing them. At the same time, show how warehouse automation will make their roles less physically taxing.
6. See automation in action
As you’re traveling along the road to warehouse automation, consider a stop along the way to get help from a tour guide.
In this case, that entails visiting a site where the warehouse automation solution has been deployed and talking to the people there about how it has worked for them. This will give you a first-hand look at the solution and also ideas on how to implement it in your own warehouse.
7. Train, train, and retrain your staff
No automation can succeed without warehouse associate buy-in. Think about it – people will only use a new technology correctly and happily if they understand it, so make 100% sure that your associates understand the solution.
Invest heavily in training for all associates that will be using or working with any automation. You may find that the warehouse automation technology you choose involves minimal training time because it’s so easy to use. If that’s the case, then your associates will be able to get hands-on experience and be up and productive quickly.
8. Ramp up gradually as metrics improve
Begin by using automation for targeted applications like relief for labor-intensive routes or seasonal spikes, such as peak season. As your team gets comfortable, slowly expand the technology’s applications across more warehouse functions.
Use measured before-and-after analytics to confirm you’re progressing responsibly towards critical key performance indicator (KPI) boosts.
9. Continuously optimize based on real data
Just like manual processes, your warehouse automation has to continuously evolve to drive further benefits over time. Dashboards and analytics tools can help you monitor how the system is working in your warehouse, and analyze usage patterns for opportunities to tweak your processes or functionality.
About the author
Mary Hart is the senior content marketing manager at Locus Robotics. Before her work at at that company, she developed e-mail marketing copy at The Channel Company, Aberdeen Group, UBM Tech, and Ziff Davis Enterprise. Hart earned her undergraduate degree in English from Stonehill College.
Editor’s note: This article was syndicated with permission from Locus Robotics’ blog.
