10 Factors to Consider Before Automating Your Warehouse

One of your first considerations should be how you plan to build your automated warehouse. Greenfield refers to new builds on undisturbed land, and brownfield describes the continuation of existing projects on a site that has already been built.

If your warehouse is Greenfield, you can start from scratch and build an automated warehouse that is exactly to your liking. Finding an automated solution for this type of warehouse is easier than adapting a solution to a brownfield location, where there is existing infrastructure and possibly legacy systems that could impede on the integration of a new solution.

It’s important to note that either warehouse can be automated these days, as there are many solutions on the market that are able to adapt to a brownfield warehouse and work with what’s already there. However, knowing where you’re starting is crucial to understanding which type of automation solution you are looking for and how limited (or unlimited) you are.

In order to begin automating your warehouse, you’ll need to consider the operations going on within it first. Is your warehouse omnichannel? Retail? eCommerce? 3PL?

The reason you have to ask yourself these questions is because you’ll need to know the capacity of your warehouse automation solution to handle your warehouse’s needs. Omnichannel warehouses handle orders from customers regardless of where they order from (online, brick and mortar, etc.). This means there are a lot of operations being handled simultaneously and you may be in need of an automation solution that can handle both retail and eCommerce operations in one location.
Retail warehouses are often also fulfillment centers. This means that the warehouse will store inventory before it’s sold and serve as a place for order fulfillment. For this you’ll need a solution that specializes in picking, packing and preparing orders for delivery.

eCommerce warehouses store goods before they are sold online. This means they need to handle a large volume of SKUs and increasingly complex orders. Automation for these types of warehouses means less errors and a better grip on reverse logistics.

3PLs enable eCommerce merchants to get more done as they have the tools and infrastructure to automate retail operations. They too, however, need an automation solution that can empower them to meet the needs of their customers’ warehouse operations.

Automating your warehouse allows you to improve traceability, reduce the need for manual labor, and lower operational costs, especially during the inbound process. Starting from verifying inventory when it arrives and all the way until it reaches the storage area, you’ll want a solution that can handle inventory as it arrives and check it and scan it in the most efficient way possible.

Decanting items could also use a touch of automation. Decanting is the process of moving goods from one box to another. Usually, after a warehouse receives its items from the manufacturer, employees have to open each box and put the items inside in new boxes that suit the warehouse’s operations. Choosing automation that doesn’t require decanting or only requires decanting for a small part of the inbound items will reduce the need for decanting and therefore, significantly decrease the amount of manpower being used.

Currently the inbound process is long and very complicated in most warehouses. It’s time consuming and leaves room for many errors in the placement of goods throughout the warehouse. Automating the inbound process will help save time and walking distances for warehouse employees and reduce the amount of errors made throughout the process.

Another thing to consider before automating your warehouse is your product specifications. The volume and weight of your product may affect the types of robots and software solutions that your warehouse will need.

In addition you should understand your Pareto ratio in order to better grasp the depth of your automation needs. For example, if 80% of your goods are slow movers, you’ll want an automation solution that can account for that and manage the process.

Once you’ve taken your Pareto ratio into consideration, next, you should understand your ABC analysis. Knowing how much inventory you have in each class will allow you to find a more suitable automation solution for your warehouse’s needs.

Finally, consider your XYZ analysis. Here too, you’ll want to know how much inventory you have in each category. If you have a lot of Z items, you’ll need a more flexible automation solution.

In addition, you’ll have to consider how goods arrive. Are they in shipping containers? Or in a truck? Are they ready to be put away or do they need to be sorted? All these factors will affect how to automate your warehouse.

Manual picking is one of the most labor intensive aspects of goods-handling. Think about it: you have to walk to the targeted rack, retrieve the product, put it in its proper tray or container, and then get walk to the next SKU’s location. All these little steps are cumbersome and time guzzling. Any improvements to this aspect of your warehouse will make a huge difference.

Automating the manual picking process is paramount to making your warehouse operations more efficient. Instead of a person doing the picking, robots can do it with software that guides them and optimizes routes, picking and packing.

You need your warehouse automation solution to adapt and scale to your warehouse’s volumes, but also, you need to know how big your automation solution needs to be to begin with based on your SKU volume.

Warehouses with high SKU volume and a large number of order lines will greatly benefit from automation. Automation streamlines the inbound and the picking process and ensures your warehouse can handle any volume of operations most efficiently.

Since the birth of eCommerce, reverse logistics has boomed to massive proportions. Reverse logistics refers to the movement of goods backwards through the supply chain. This encompasses everything from returns to recycling materials.

Reverse logistics requires a lot of manpower. Once a warehouse receives trucks full of returns, warehouse personnel must open every single parcel manually, conduct a quality check, enter it into the system and then walk the item over to its new location in the warehouse. This demands a lot of human intervention.

Imagine being able to reduce half a shift spent on topping up down to seconds using automation.

Warehouse’s will likely always need some kind of human intervention at certain stages of their operations. The current status quo is that warehouse’s rely heavily on human resources to power machines and execute tasks. This leaves a lot of room for risk and error that hinders productivity and profitability of the warehouse overall.

Consider that automating much of the warehouse’s operations will reduce human intervention and therefore, reduce the risk and errors that come with manual labor. Though it will likely not replace the need completely, putting a lot of those repetitive tasks such as picking, walking and more, on auto-pilot will definitely improve operations across the board.

In order to best gauge what kind of warehouse automation solution would best fit your needs, you need to also consider your peak to non-peak ratio. This means you need to understand the trends and peaks within your warehouse’s operational activity and choose a solution that has the ability to supply your demand.

Are you busier during certain times of the year? Then you’ll need a flexible solution that will allow you to scale operations dramatically during peak seasons and scale down during non-peak seasons.

Implementing an automated warehouse should bring you positive results and a strong ROI within 2 years of launching it. Automation for your warehouse can be measured by the volume of the operation and how much your warehouse has been able to take on since implementing your automated processes.

Automation will prove itself worthy only if it saves your business money on manpower and overhead costs, reduces errors and optimizes operations across the board. By choosing the right solution for your warehouse, you can guarantee a smooth and fruitful automation journey that will transform your warehouse operations and increase your business’ bottom line.