We sell electrical equipment. All you need
for electrical installations in your home. We have numerous corporate customers.
We have fitters and electricians. We have many personal customers too,
in contrast to our competition. Our growth from $22 million in 2014
to $112 million the last 12 months, shows we meet
the needs of our market segments. A growth of this magnitude
will create logistical challenges. In 2017, we decided
we needed more space. And we must be inventive
to prevent our costs fro
m rising along with our goals of increasing sales. One of our warehouse guys
suggested we check out AutoStore. The new warehouse alone
was quite the task in January 2017, yet in March 2017,
we decided to go for AutoStore as well. We had to consider warehouse automation. Between then and until the warehouse
was up and running on October 1, we installed an AutoStore system here.
Let’s take a look. On these 500 square meters
we have an AutoStore system with 12 Robots. 10,750 Bins covering 13,750 sp
ots, supplying 4 workstations. In this small system we store
85% of all lines for the warehouse. How AutoStore benefits Elektroimportøren ... First, we didn’t want our costs
to rise proportionally with our sales. We had to find a way to improve
our efficiency. AutoStore gave us that. Additionally, AutoStore has improved
the ergonomics of our personnel, and reduced physical strain. It has improved our scale economies
more than expected from a new warehouse. The biggest advantage of the AutoStore
system is increased efficiency. We put a lot of focus
on the well-being of our staff. The workday in a warehouse
will be physically demanding, so it’s great to see that not just
the extremely physically fit can work in a warehouse
and enjoy their workday. Those are the biggest advantages. Especially with regards to distance-keeping, the placing of the workstations
has been convenient. One worker per station
means safe distancing. That’s 1 bonus.
The other is our massive revenue growth. Whenever
our revenue grows,
AutoStore is great to have, as it reduces the variations. What you can see on this screen
is Element’s EWMS. This is used for communication
between ERP and AutoStore, and between ERP
and the rest of the warehouse. It gives us all the information
we need to pick, as well as helpful hints
about what to look for while picking to reduce the number of picking errors. All
orders are handled through the EWMS system. When an order is placed in our online store,
the robots start search
ing for the products. Once someone is ready to start picking, we go here and state
that we’d like to start picking web orders. The robot finds the bin
and sends it down that shaft, straight to the picking station.
Let’s give it a try. We request an order
and the sticker appears at once. Then the robots start working to send
a bin with our products down to us. This customer ordered 4 products. They ordered 1 in baby blue. We pick 1 and simply click “confirm”. Then the robot prepares to bring us
t
he next bin with another product. Still one. The system alerts us of additional products.
Then we get a red light. We must stay focused and pick more. That was everything the customer wanted.
Everything’s ready. We’ll seal the box. We’ve got the transport sticker we required. Let’s stick it on. And straight to the mail carrier. With AutoStore, placing products
is as simple as picking them. Let me show you one. This is a complete sticker
from the stock receipt. Let’s place the product. The sticke
r tells me that this is going
into 1 of the bins with 4 locations. So I click this button. I know I want to place products.
Now, I’ll scan the tag. The system tells me
I should place only 1. That’s correct. So, I confirm this. The robot finds a bin with 4 locations, where
this product can be placed in 1 section. Here comes the bin. Here the system tells us it should be
placed in the location to the upper right. Put the product in place, confirm, and the product is placed,
ready to be picked. Our
ports are carousel ports. Which means there are 3 arms
under this desk, holding bins. So, while l pick from 1,
the robots keep working to remove something already picked,
to place the next pick. This big gap could make you worry
about crushing injuries and such. But it’s very simple. If you touch this,
you hear that beep, and it stops. You must put it where it belongs ... ... and press here
to get the port working again. Which makes this a very safe workstation. If you put your arm here
while a
bin is on its way, it may hurt a bit,
but you won’t get physically injured. The emergency stop turns on immediately,
so you won’t get a serious crushing injury. The sound level
of the AutoStore is fairly low. A forklift driving on the warehouse floor
creates more noise than robots on the grid. Even to those manning the ports all day. Let’s take a look at the mezzanine
and the service area in here. Here we see the wheelchair
used to go out on the grid to help out robots
in need of a little assis
tance. When Element, our supplier,
comes out here for service, we bring the robots out from the grid
and overhaul them out here. This won’t cause
any downtime for the system. We can overhaul all the robots out here
without disrupting the system. The same applies when a robot breaks down. We know AutoStore can adapt
to different warehouse shapes and such, but we started from scratch
in a brand new building, so we were able
to give AutoStore a squarish structure. Concerning power consumption ... W
e considered another system
before deciding on AutoStore. One of the reasons we chose AutoStore, was that
the other system’s power consumption was 10 times that of AutoStore. AutoStore only needs power for the robot
charging station and the picking stations. There are no other power-intensive parts. This reduces
the power consumption significantly. Fire safety was an early focus
when considering AutoStore. Such compact storing
demands quite a bit from a sprinkler system. We were lucky enough
to
discuss this at an early building stage. Even while building the warehouse, we could adjust
for extra sprinkling for the system. We’re not talking huge amounts,
but with such compact storage, a somewhat more intensive
warehouse sprinkling was needed. Our first thought concerning automation,
was about profitability. Was this a fiscally sound decision? The other concerned risks. How great was the danger
of falling behind due to automation? The word “automation” makes many stomachs
turn among logis
tics professionals. We worried about systems with tons
of sensors and lots of fragile parts, and about shocks, dust
and other things you get in a warehouse. As we got to know AutoStore better,
we realized that yes, this is automation, but first and foremost, this is smart and
compact storing with robots driving on top. The system runs even if
1 of the 12 robots is down. It works even if
5 of the 12 robots are down. Just not as efficiently. That’s quite
the upside with regards to uptime. Concerni
ng profitability,
namely the major question before presenting the significant cost
of AutoStore to a board, we quickly realized this isn’t
an expense, it’s an investment. We expected a payback in 3 years at best,
and 3.5 years at worst. Not the biggest time frame. But we ended up with payback
in less than 2 years. Before ordering AutoStore,
we had to ask the stupid question: “How does it work?” When you stack 16 bins on top of each
other, how do you get the bottom one out? Now that we’re familia
r with AutoStore,
we see that there’s nothing to worry about. AutoStore makes sure
reserved products automatically get placed
among the top 2-4 layers. Hence, when an order is placed,
the bin is ready not long after. Additionally, the robots work
different hours than us. If we receive an order
for 1 of the bottom products, the system makes sure that the bin will be
at the top when we come to work. This makes for high efficiency,
even if it takes a while for the robot to lift 15 bins
to get to nu
mber 16 at the very bottom. So, we never have to wait long. AutoStore makes use of the time
we’re not at work to prepare. Advice for new customers? I wouldn’t change much at our facility. But keep expansion in mind,
even though it looks big initially. Things move fast in a growing business. Keep a few years of extra capacity,
and think about where to expand, down to power-conduit positioning and
where to install an extra sprinkler system, and things like that,
in order to allow for expansion. Be
aring that in mind makes
any possible expansion less costly.
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