GEC NEWS WIREAs customer demand is quickly growing, so too is the need for flexible, robotic solutions. The global explosion in the growth of e-commerce in both the business-to-consumer and business-to-business segments has led to increased demand for more scalable, modular solutions to meet rapidly changing customer demands.
As one of the most flexible and space efficient goods-to-person solutions available today, AutoStore, a cube-based system, has revolutionized e-commerce fulfillment and small item order picking. The scalable system can be deployed relatively quickly in almost any warehouse environment, providing dramatic improvements in space utilization and productivity compared to traditional shelf-based storage. In the UAE, three companies have deployed this solution till date, with more in the pipeline.
Alain Kaddoum, General Manager of Swisslog Middle East said, “I am proud we have such a strong relationship with AutoStore and have the freedom to develop our own solutions to increase efficiency for our customers even further. We believe that AutoStore provides exceptional customer value, and we are looking forward to continuing to deliver exciting automated projects based on this scalable, modular solution.”
Swisslog was one of the first AutoStore integrators, with the partnership beginning in 2009. The first installation went live in Munich, Germany at a new logistics center for AVNET, a distributor of electrical components. More customers like Competec Group decided to implement AutoStore and expanded the system as they were growing.
Today, Swisslog has sold more than 130 AutoStore projects in 19 countries. Almost 124 of these systems have already been implemented. After nearly 10 years of successfully implementing the AutoStore solution, Swisslog has gained invaluable experience in designing, developing and implementing the system. In fact, Swisslog has implemented both the world’s largest AutoStore system with 361,000 storage bins and the world’s smallest, with only 1,000 bins.
As consumer expectations for rapid fulfillment increase, companies are becoming more aware of how software and robotics can give them a huge advantage in the future. Swisslog’s intelligent automated item picking application ItemPiQ will allow companies to increase their picking capacity and acurancy within no time. With the development of flexible software solutions, Swisslog can offer AutoStore customers the intelligent tools to prepare their warehouse for future challenges. Developments like this are allowing new design capabilities for AutoStore, improving the efficiency of the concept even further, building on the vision of demand-driven, self-learning warehouses.
