Avenue Shops, a Utah-based apparel drop-shipper, has partnered with logistics automation company Hai Robotics to expand its 30,000ft2 warehouse.
Hai Robotics’ Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS), which is navigated by autonomous case-handling mobile robots (ACRs) to support order picking.
According to the robot developer, this has enabled the drop-shipper to maximise its use of vertical space and has led to more efficient fulfilment operations overall.
Storage footprint decreased by 60% overall, compressing the space used from 15,000 to 6,000ft2, while also growing storage capacity 2.5 times, Avenue Shops explained.
What’s more, the introduction of 28-foot shelving reportedly facilitated a four-times increase in storage height, allowing Ave to manage more than 12,000 SKUs within the smaller footprint. Order fulfilment capacity also saw a 65% jump in orders shipped per day.
Read more: EU funding awarded to warehouse automation project with Hai Robotics
“The Hai system has really given us a competitive edge,” said Adam Womble, chief of staff and co-founder of Avenue Shops.
“One thing we’ve heard since going into the system is that we’re actually shipping too fast!”
Manual labour requirements also saw a significant reduction, with the number of employees picking orders per shift decreasing from five to ten to just one to two.
The apparel shipper added that some of the key gains as a result included lessening the impact of staffing shortages, boosting workflow efficiencies and improving employee well-being and job satisfaction.
Hai Robotics will be exhibiting at Stand 700 at Robotics and Automation Exhibition, where the latest developments in robotics and automated technologies for materials handling will be on show. Register to attend now!
