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Relentless eCommerce trends continue to put tremendous strain on distribution and fulfillment operations worldwide, leading companies to turn to increased warehouse automation. A new Honeywell report reveals once-predictable consumer demand cycles centered around holidays and "peak seasons" have given way to a model where any month, week or day can be a holiday.
Warehouse Automation: Future-Proofing the Global Economy , authored by Futurum Research, examines the importance of warehouse automation as an increasingly critical component in helping warehouse and distribution center (DC) operators meet new escalation points in consumer demand.
"One of the biggest predictors of how a business will thrive in the hypercompetitive e-commerce and omnichannel market place is how well it improves its decision making in real time to make deliveries faster and more accurate," said Keith Fisher, President of Honeywell Intelligrated. "With rising service level agreements dictating order fulfillment process improvements, warehouse automation can help bring stability, predictability and potentially unlock greater efficiency to their operations."
The analysts at Futurum Research developed the report after sitting down with a group of industry leaders with deep, global experience in warehouse operations, automation technologies and systems implementation to hear first-hand of their experiences and thoughts on the future of warehouse automation. Three recommendations emerged from the interviews as businesses navigate challenges both present and future along their automation journey:
"While warehouses have historically had a sense of predictability in demand cycles, we found that in today's warehouses and DCs, every day is as busy as peak," said Shelly Kramer, Principal Analyst and Founding Partner of Futurum Research. "While we can assume the level of strain this has placed on supply chain and fulfillment operations, we were able to get a better grasp of how businesses are approaching this shift in consumer expectations and adopting the right automation to meet their long-term business goals."
The report also explores how the ongoing pandemic, global trade issues and regional conflicts have created long-term disruptions to the historically predictable throughput and capacity of warehouses and DCs.
From concept and integration, Honeywell Intelligrated draws on its expanding portfolio and deep industry expertise to help warehousing, distribution and fulfillment companies optimize and manage their processes. The business offers integrated end-to-end automation solutions, warehouse execution systems and analytics solutions to improve throughput and keep workers safe. You can learn more about Honeywell's warehouse automation solutions and capabilities here.
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March report uncovers the major reasons why logistics businesses are seeking automation solutions, primarily labour issues, booming e-commerce and the growing importance of resilient supply chains. It also provides a range of real-life examples of the solutions at work.