Warehouse automation remains a key priority for businesses, especially those in retail. The role it plays remains vital, but now sits in a different external environment.
Furthermore, too much automation is still under-delivering and not achieving its full potential. Here we cover three key points to change this.
Automation is now a critical tool for managing costs
Automation has been a proven tool for creating strategic and competitive advantage, fostering improved supply chain performance and productivity that helps fast-moving industries like retail manage higher volumes and deliver better customer experiences.
Automation and particularly robots can help manage the multiple peaks retailers can experience in the year, adjusting the operation to changing demand. They can also help improve the daily life for warehouse colleagues, reducing the miles they need to cover and providing opportunities for upskilling.
But today’s context is different. Retailers are managing a heightened cost environment. Automation is now a critical tool to help drive efficiency and remove cost from the supply chain. This imperative isn’t going away any time soon.
Retailers are no longer just chasing higher volumes and faster delivery times, although there is no doubt that these ambitions will rise in importance again in the future. Instead, they are looking for ways they can keep costs under control, while delivering a stronger, more resilient operation.
As a result, even smaller retail operations are making use of more accessible, modular automation solutions, which can help them protect margins and manage costs.
Innovation is rife – but it’s orchestration that really matters
But what automation to choose? There is a bewildering list of potential solutions, including innovative new humanoid robots, as well as drone-based inventory solutions and more established AMRs.
This is good news, as there has never been a one size-fits-all solution. Every retailer will have different needs, to suit their specific operation. At GXO, we have a big focus on partnering with leading robotics developers to test and validate warehouse use cases for our customers and currently have more than 20,000 robots deployed globally.
What becomes critical in this context is orchestration.
Without a clear unifying layer, a warehouse is at risk of becoming a collection of separate, fragmented and siloed solutions. One single piece of new technology in isolation won’t contribute as much if it is not coordinated with what’s actually happening across the operation in real time.
A robot picker doesn’t generate a significant impact if labour isn’t accurately scheduled to match its pace, and neither will perform as well if there is no oversight of ongoing changing demand. A proper orchestration layer will turn individual pieces of automation or robotics into a single, seamless, decision-making system. One that reacts to changing need and real-time information.
Bringing AI into the mix
Our recent research found that 44% of logistics leaders are already using AI for demand forecasting, and a further 41% plan to within five years.
This is why at GXO we are investing in our IQ platform, an AI-powered intelligent operating system for logistics. Drawing directly from our 20+ years of operational expertise and know-how from thousands of frontline operators, it leverages AI algorithms to orchestrate millions of complex, multi-step actions across the logistics value chain.
This solution enables customers to change from a purely reactive, inconsistent operation, working from historical reporting, to a predictive one that pre-empts problems before they happen. And because it’s based on a standardised data model, it’s much faster to deploy than custom-built solutions, and we’re already seeing the cost saving efficiencies it can deliver across multiple operations where we’ve deployed the GXO IQ platform.
Automation still holds enormous potential for retailers, especially for managing costs. But fragmented technology alone won’t act as a silver bullet.
To find out more, visit GXO.com
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