If you’re thinking about making the leap to emerging technology, but are unsure how or where to begin, here’s a good question to ask of any would-be robotics providers you encounter:
What do you sell?
It seems like an obvious and even unnecessary question, but the answer you get will actually tell you a lot about the provider you’re considering.
How?
The material handling industry is experiencing a renaissance in technological advancement. And robotics companies in particular are bringing new products to market at a break neck pace.
This is potentially great news for processing efficiencies.
But when industries explode the way the material handling industry has over the past few years, the growth is typically product driven. And in a product-rich market, the focus from the provider side of the equation can be to try to saturate the market as quickly as possible to establish early market dominance and make it difficult for the competition to stay afloat.
To do that, many young companies will adopt a sales strategy that is more focused on finding customers to fit their products than on finding products to fit their customers.
It’s a nuanced difference, but an important one, because a majority of the robotic solutions that are taking center stage in the market today are being marketed as a quick fix to the low hanging fruit of warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution challenges.
They are generally singular solutions designed to address singular challenges.
This can be a good thing if you’re only in the market for a specific product designed to automate a single process in your operation, or if your product line happens to fit into a one-size-fits-all technology offering.
But if your needs are more complex than that, then you’re looking at all sorts of challenges that may not be addressed by the majority of the solutions out there: Challenges like how to integrate multi-robotic systems into one holistic system and what software you will use to orchestrate your operation.
Solutions that knock a big problem off your list of challenges can be tempting, especially if they can be implemented quickly without a lot of interruption to your operation. But caution should be paid to the problems such solutions might bring you down the line. Silos of technology are the enemy of growth, because they limit flexibility and scalability.
True warehouse automation requires solutions to a myriad of challenges that all influence and impact the ability to solve other challenges.
So while raising the efficiency of a primary operational process can be alluring, if the solution is not seamlessly compatible with the overall operation, then the efficiency gained is likely to be lost in downstream processes because of any number of informational or operational compatibility issues.
So ask the question, “what do you sell?” And you’ll quickly discover if what a provider is selling is really going to tackle the challenges you face.
What We Sell
Our answer to the question, by the way is this:
At MSI Automate, we sell comprehensive, fully integrated, and centrally orchestrated automation systems that are uniquely designed to address our clients’ warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution challenges.
Our systems typically incorporate multiple layers of technologies including heterogenous robotics and traditional technologies — all carefully selected to enhanced our clients’ automation processing capabilities in the areas of:
• receiving
• storage and retrieval
• pallet, case, tote, and unit picking
• order fulfillment
• sortation
• transportation
• packing
• manifesting
• shipping
• reverse logistics
All of our systems are meticulously integrated, orchestrated, and optimized into one turn-key automation ecosystem that is governed by our own AutomateAI warehouse software — meaning no additional layers of software are required that can slow productivity and raise operating costs.
Our focus is on our client’s cost per unit (CPU) and finding ways to reduce it to its lowest possible level, while maintaining worker safety and honoring the promises our clients make to their customers in terms of order delivery, accuracy, and quality.
If you’re thinking about making the leap to emerging technology, or any kind of automation for that matter, let us know what you want to accomplish, and we’ll show you how you can.
Walter High is VP Marketing at MSI Automate, where he has worked since 2012.