Building Future-Proof and Resilient Warehouse Automation Strategies
The Demand for Warehouse Automation
Modern supply chains face challenges such as rising consumer expectations, labor shortages, and the push for energy efficiency and waste reduction. Unpredictable disruptions, such as geopolitical events, natural disasters, and shifting sales demands, further complicate these issues.
What’s more, inflation is driving people to prioritize essential over non-essential purchases while fluctuating buying preferences—such as a shift from online shopping one season to in-store shopping the next—add another layer of complexity. Companies must be dynamic and efficient to meet customer and market demands and remain competitive.
Warehouse automation offers a solution to these challenges by streamlining operations, increasing productivity and accuracy, and enhancing the overall efficiency of warehouse operations. However, businesses often face the false dilemma of choosing between single-channel and omni channel strategies within their facilities. The reality is that an omni channel approach can provide the adaptability and efficiency needed to future-proof operations and meet diverse fulfillment demands.
Key Types of Automation
There are many options for choosing the right automation for your needs. Understanding these different solutions can help you decide how to align your choices for automation with your business priorities.
Mobile Automation:
This includes automation that is not tied down to a physical location, such as AMRs and autonomous forklifts. Mobile automation is ideal when you require flexibility and scalability in your operations.
TGW Logistics systems like FlashPick, FullPick, and LivePick are ideal for flexible tasks like dynamic order picking or goods transport. For example, an apparel retailer may use them to quickly move items across fluctuating inventory zones during peak seasons.
Fixed Automation:
This refers to stationary automation tied down to a physical location, such as conveyors and picking workstations. While fixed automation doesn’t allow as much flexibility as mobile automation, it does fit a wide range of applications and supports high levels of productivity and space savings.
Omni channel Automation:
Omni channel solutions are mobile and/or fixed automation systems that, through the right design and warehouse management software, create a consistent customer order fulfillment and delivery experience, whether they shop online, in store, or on their phones.
TGW Logistics designs its systems so that automation runs agnostically to different sales channels. Whether dealing with a high volume of orders from retail one day to e-commerce orders the next, the system runs efficiently.
The optimal approach often involves adopting an omni channel automation strategy that balances productivity and adapts seamlessly to diverse operational demands.
Funding Warehouse Automation
There’s no doubt that automation will be the future of warehouse management. However, while some businesses recognize the importance of automation they may not have the funds upfront to invest in it. In this case, companies can consider leasing equipment.
Companies will need to consider the pros and cons of owning versus leasing warehouse automation systems. Owning can offer long-term cost savings and give businesses full control over expanding, downsizing, and selling at a later date. Leasing gives businesses a lower upfront investment, freeing them up to use that capital for other investments. In this sense, leasing offers more immediate financial flexibility.
There are several ways to approach leasing options. For example, a mid-sized retailer might explore leasing options tailored to their financial priorities and available budget. Depending on their goals, they could lease the entire automation system through a banking partner, lease the building they operate in, or lease both the building and the automation system through a financial agency or contractor offering comprehensive leasing packages.
TGW Logistics helps clients navigate these financial decisions by crafting automation solutions that align with their operational goals, specific ROI objectives, and long-term expansion plans.
Better Efficiency Through Human-Machine Collaboration
The ideal approach to automation is human-machine collaboration. Warehouse automation aims not to replace human workers but to support their roles by reducing repetitive tasks and improving safety. For example, a fulfillment center might use ergonomic picking stations to reduce employee strain while boosting accuracy and productivity.
When machines handle monotonous or physically taxing work, employees can focus on complex decision-making and higher-order tasks. This gives employees more opportunities to upskill by learning how to operate and maintain advanced systems, which can increase job satisfaction. Considering the labor challenges of today’s market, this is a huge advantage.
TGW Logistics designs its mobile robots to work in challenging and dynamic environments, reducing employee risk. Our solutions advance higher productivity while ensuring better safety, contributing to positive human-machine workplace collaboration.
TGW Logistics is committed to solutions that create a safer, more satisfied, and more productive workforce. With automation, manual operations are simplified, leading to faster training times for employees. Faster training means your employees can get up to speed on multiple processes for a more flexible labor force.
Sustainability and Future-Proofing Operations
Automation contributes to sustainability by reducing energy consumption, waste, and carbon footprints. For example, the speed and efficiency of warehouse robots lead to less overall energy use, and a higher level of accuracy through automation also means less waste in terms of resources and time.
Systems like energy-efficient conveyors and smart inventory management software optimize operations while meeting environmental goals. Today’s modern material handling equipment is built with more energy-efficient components, supporting sustainability while saving operational costs. For instance, a global ecommerce company may implement mobile robots with energy-saving shutdown features to align with green initiatives.
TGW Logistic’s adaptable and highly flexible systems prepare businesses for future demands, allowing seamless integration of emerging technologies and evolving market requirements. We ensure that companies are dynamic, flexible, and prepared to adapt quickly regardless of the scenario.
Real-World Success with Automation
TGW Logistics’ collaboration with clothing retailers highlights the power of omni channel automation. In some cases, we manage 100% of retail orders, in addition to the majority of their ecommerce orders. This approach streamlines operations, reducing the need for additional fulfillment centers in the future. By consolidating multiple channels and several brands under one roof, we’ve simplified what could be a complex operation—balancing fluctuating demand across multiple brands—into an efficient, scalable system.
We also achieved this level of success when we partnered with Jasco, a consumer electronics and lighting company. Like many companies, Jasco faced challenges from a lengthening supply chain and increasing demands for fast and efficient order fulfillment. With over 20,000 pallet and parcel orders daily, Jasco employees were on their feet for around 16 miles of steps a day. To improve their processes, Jasco partnered with TGW Logistics to increase efficiency with warehouse automation systems.
Jasco’s brownfield automation project showcases the flexibility of TGW Logistics’s FlashPick system, enhanced with semi-automated palletizers. This setup allows Jasco to efficiently handle split- and full-case orders within a single building, optimizing omni channel fulfillment. By integrating advanced technologies, Jasco streamlined operations and achieved significant cost savings while maintaining the adaptability needed for diverse order requirements.
These examples highlight that a strategic and flexible automation strategy delivers measurable results, from throughput gains to reduced labor reliance.
TGW Logistics Helps You Find the Right Solution
Warehouse automation isn’t about choosing between single-channel or omni channel strategies—it’s about finding the right solution to meet diverse fulfillment demands. Adopting an omni channel approach enhances efficiency, promotes energy and waste reduction, and effectively positions businesses to tackle future challenges.
You also gain resiliency across operations since automation can easily handle fluctuations in demand. Less overhead costs give you financial resiliency, and a leasing option allows you to explore other short-term investments. Improved upskilling keeps employees adaptable, and better sustainability means a positive environmental impact.
We invite you to learn more about TGW Logistics’ tailored solutions for optimizing the supply chain through automation in our latest ebook: Future-Proof Your Supply Chain: Industry Trends and Automated Solutions.
Please contact us to discover how we can support your success now and into the future with a customized warehouse automation strategy.
TGW Logistics is a foundation-owned company headquartered in Austria and a global leader in warehouse automation and warehouse logistics. As a trusted systems integrator with more than 50 years of experience, we deliver end-to-end services: designing, implementing, and maintaining fulfillment centers powered by mechatronics, robotics, and advanced software solutions. With over 4,500 employees spanning Europe, Asia, and North America, we combine expertise, innovation, and a customer-centric dedication to help keep your business growing. With TGW Logistics, it's possible to transform your warehouse logistics into a competitive advantage.
