As a pioneer and leader in optimising warehouse operations for the past 25 years, Lucas Systems has helped hundreds of companies transform their distribution centre operations using AI, smart software, and voice. Through Jennifer™, the brain, voice and orchestration engine of our solutions, we dramatically increase worker productivity, operational agility, accuracy, and reduce the need for labour.
Business Development Manager, EMEA
James Hart, Business Development Manager, EMEA of Lucas Systems, speaks to Warehouse & Logistics News.
What does your role involve on a day-to-day basis?
I have spent the past six years with Lucas Systems, working closely with customers to help them optimise performance, create agility, make smarter decisions and be future ready through smart, worker-focused software solutions. My mission is to provide them with rapid ROI, transform operations and help them constantly adjust to the dynamic nature of markets and customer demands.
How would you explain the Lucas Culture?
We are passionate about helping customers improve their distribution operations. We measure the success of our projects by delivering tangible operational improvements that justify our customers’ trust in us as their partner. The Lucas team is an extension of our customers’ operations. We operate 24×7 like they do with support engineers available at all times.
Our vision for warehouse innovation is to use technology to simplify complex logistics challenges and make work easier and better for frontline associates and managers.
How does this culture assist your clients’ requirements?
Our solutions dramatically increase worker productivity, operational agility, accuracy, and reduce the need for labour. Since 1998, we have worked with hundreds of companies with a focus on improving their operational processes and business sustainability while making life easier for warehouse managers and on-floor workers.
Before we undertake any project, we take the time to understand our customer’s operations, technical requirements, and business needs, and we work closely with them, including operations and IT personnel, to identify process improvement possibilities.
Do you have direct contact with customers, and get involved developing solutions?
Yes, I work very closely with our internal development and solutions teams in tandem with our customers to develop and implement our solutions. I have been on the floor of hundreds of warehouses looking at ways to help them improve. My experience has allowed me to be equally comfortable on the warehouse floor, to the executive offices, understanding the needs of each stakeholder group to address their unique needs.
Tell us how Lucas are growing in the UK
Local implementation and support presence is key to providing partners and customers the solutions, services, and support that are the hallmarks of our long-term success. We have been consistently expanding our global team and have nearly doubled the numbers of our UK office in the past year – offering a full complement of skills including solutions experts, engineering and technical support – with a plan to further expand the team as our footprint grows with new customers and prospects.
What makes Lucas unique in your industry?
Lucas has a twenty-five year history of industry firsts. Our market-leading perspective is driven by deep process expertise, experience in over 400 warehouses around the world, and proven through many customers that have been with Lucas for 15 or more years.
Long before Alexa and Siri, Lucas delivered Jennifer™ voice-directed mobile applications on multiple hardware platforms. We pioneered the use of Android wearables in the DC, and introduced AI-based optimisation tools when AI was barely spoken of in supply chain circles. We innovate in three vital areas: AI and machine learning; speech and mobile applications; and technology-enabled process optimisation.
What solutions does Lucas offer customers?
Our customisable warehouse optimisation solutions can be incorporated throughout warehouses and distribution centres, maximising work execution in every facet of operations. They include:
•AI travel optimisation, including prioritisation, batching and route optimisation logic to significantly reduce travel.
•Dynamic slotting driven by AI and machine learning to give real-time feedback and eliminate engineering and manual modelling required for traditional slotting systems.
•Voice-directed warehousing, which integrates with barcode scanning, smart glasses and RFID to help automate manual, hands-on processes in the warehouse.
•Warehouse execution software which increases efficiency, throughput and accuracy with workflows and mobile applications for material handling processes.
What sectors do these clients work in?
Lucas solutions are in hundreds of warehouses throughout the world, from multinational companies to single site distributors. Our customers span industries including food and beverage, medical, industrial, manufacturing, retail and ecommerce.
How can your solutions help?
We use artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and voice to optimise performance and drive significant operational and customer experience gains for our partners every single day. Our solutions have helped customers reduce travel in the warehouse by 30-70%, uncover how to double picking productivity, cut labour hours in half without making any changes to their warehouse layout, and reduce picking errors by 50% or more.
How future proof and flexible are your solutions?
Lucas System’s AI, machine learning and other decision making technologies allow for continuous learning and optimisation as more and more data is fed into the systems. Our technology, flexible workflows, and modular IT architecture adapt and scale to each DC’s unique process and technology requirements, meaning our warehouse execution software evolves as products, customers and business change.
We also help prepare for the future by allowing for seamless integration of robots and other next-generation technology without replacing current systems—reducing the costs and risks of change.
What new services/solutions are you offering for 2023?
AI and machine learning technologies offer tremendous promise for reaching higher levels of work optimisation and helping operators make smart, data-driven choices in real time. As operators put robots in the warehouse with workers, orchestration of work will be critical. Software companies like Lucas Systems are perfecting this technology today.
Lucas is also continually refining its dynamic slotting solution, which eliminates the need for manual engineering and measurement. Our model recommends the best locations for inventory based on SKU velocity, SKU affinity, product/slot information, pick paths and other data, and adapts to the DC, evolving as conditions change and providing continuous optimisation.
Lucas continues to expand and refine its voice capabilities, offering the ability for customers to use its technology in 35 languages. If a worker is speaking English, and a manager best understands Spanish on their device and communication, that preference can be adapted for.
What do you see as the biggest opportunities in the coming year for Lucas?
With labour shortages predicted to continue for the foreseeable future, there has been a re-emphasis on products and features that are geared to reducing labour needs. Much of the innovation is not just in devices or wearables themselves but in the enterprise software that runs on them. Examples include advanced voice recognition that requires almost no training and the use of AI and machine learning to reduce on-floor worker travel.
Also, the cost and time to implement large-scale automation or robotics solutions can be long, complicated, and expensive. Lucas software solutions can achieve the same or better results at a fraction of the cost, and be implemented in a matter of just a few months. This dramatically accelerates ROI for customers.
What are the biggest challenges facing Lucas and your industry?
For us, it’s helping customers understand the complex and evolving world of warehouse automation. That includes considerations like labour shortages, the need to attract the younger workforce, and growing end customer expectations for accuracy and shorter delivery times.
Do you cover the whole of the UK?
Yes, we serve locations throughout the UK as well as other areas of Europe including Belgium and Germany.
Lucas Systems
0289 600 2852
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