What’s one of primary deterrents to realizing advantageous outcomes from warehouse automation projects? Two words: Risk aversion. Risk averse decisions can actually expose your company to more risk than it would encounter were its decisions not influenced by risk aversion. Why? Because risk averse decisions are based on the elimination …
Did you know that virtual reality can actually enhance the efficiency of a micro-fulfillment operation? Seems like a stretch, right? But it’s true. And it can actually have a dramatic impact. In our last post, we shared a look at an in-store micro-fulfillment system we created for a global retail …
A leading global retail client of ours came to us with an interest in micro-fulfillment. With an industry-leading store network of almost 350 stores globally, they were looking for a solution that would utilize their stores to enhance their customers’ shopping experience. Using a small percentage of their overall store …
Remember how MTV Unplugged disrupted the music industry back in the ‘90’s? Suddenly electric guitar legends where winning Grammys for acoustic performances and everybody was cashing in on the popularity of being unplugged. Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are doing something similar to the supply chain industry today as the …
Many companies are considering investments in automated fulfillment systems today because of the strategic benefits and competitive edge automation can bring — especially to ecommerce retailers. But when it comes to actually investing in automation, some companies shy away from the level of change that will net them the advantages …
Dear Prospective Customer, We get it. Getting your products out to your customers in a cost-efficient and expeditious way can be ridiculously difficult. Whatever your distribution strategy, the implementation of an automated order fulfillment and distribution operation requires extensive research, sophisticated systems integration, and significant investment if it is to …
If we’ve learned anything from the trials of the past few years, it is that adaptability matters. With luck you will carry that lesson through the trials ahead. But how, exactly? Adaptability is not only difficult to define, it’s also difficult to prepare for and really hard to achieve. For …
Ecommerce fulfillment is challenging not just because ecommerce customers have come to expect lightning fast delivery, but also because of the highly unpredictable nature of ecommerce consumer ordering patterns. Widely varying ordering patterns mean that at any point throughout the day, the items (SKUs and associated quantities) required to fulfill …
With the explosion in ecommerce demand brought to us largely by the pandemic, there has been an equally impressive mushrooming in returns processing demand. And given that for some businesses, the cost of returns can amount to 30% of online sales and, depending upon their processing approach/capabilities, can account for …
A lot of people in the supply chain industry have been cautiously watching the robotic technology space for the past few years waiting for a sign that it’s safe to go in the water. Understandably, the hold-up for many has been finding answers to questions like: Will robotic technology really …