Have you entered The Sweet Spot?
Can’t find workers? Can’t keep them? Can’t afford to hire as many as you need? You’re not alone. Forty percent of respondents in the 2024 State of Warehouse Labor Report said they still don’t have enough workers to meet demand. Supply Chain Dive says, “The productivity decline caused by labor shortages and the skyrocketing costs associated with hiring in a high-turnover industry, ultimately have a detrimental impact on the bottom line.”
Labor-related issues also compound other challenges including supply chain disruptions and customer demands for faster delivery. For these and other reasons, companies are shifting their focus from hiring to getting the best out of the talent they have. Automation is the top strategy for doing so.
If you’re ready to automate and your inventory includes large, bulky or heavy items, you may have entered The Sweet Spot. It’s that point where the need justifies the cost of ASRS (automated storage and retrieval systems) with large totes. While these totes aren’t for everyone, they could make sense for you.
Sometimes, bigger is better.
Typically, automation providers utilize smaller totes in automated storage and retrieval systems because they optimize the size of the ASRS. They also offer better ergonomics for workers and less honeycombing in each location (the unused space inside a tote after some items have been picked.)
If you have products that would normally be excluded from automated processing because of their size, bulk or weight, it’s time to consider large totes. Large totes combined with an advanced shuttle system and ergonomic workstations have automated order processing of individual items like luxury shoes, ski boots, driveshafts, windshield wipers, artificial Christmas trees and more.
That's heavy, man.
When your ASRS can process large items, you no longer have to ask your warehouse workforce to risk their health and safety to retrieve big, unwieldy and heavy items. This makes your work environment more attractive and makes the work itself more satisfying. Instead of walking miles a day, picking items from multiple floors of shelving spread out over hundreds of thousands of square feet of space, goods come to your workstation operators.
The shift to a goods-to-person (G2P) design can double or even triple the productivity of warehouse workers with an average six seconds per pick for standard weight items and 8-10 seconds for bigger items. A high-tech, human-centric work environment also appeals to a younger generation of workers and makes them more likely to stay. Other benefits of utilizing large totes in your shuttle system include:
- Increased accuracy in order fulfillment
- Improved productivity to solve labor challenges
- Improved picking and handling processes
- Reduced cost on a per-order basis
- Reduced order fulfillment cycle times
- Reduced number of full-time employees (FTEs)
- Improved space utilization in some cases
