AutoStore storage system: What it does, how it works and when it pays off.

A prac­ti­cal report

Are you plan­ning a new invest­ment project and con­sid­er­ing whether an Auto­Store sys­tem should be used in your logis­tics? Or have you already decid­ed in favour of it? Auto­Store has been suc­cess­ful­ly used as an auto­mat­ed small parts ware­house for years — but an estab­lished sys­tem alone does not guar­an­tee the suc­cess of a project. The deci­sive course for cost-effec­tive­ness, effi­cien­cy and future-proof­ing is set ear­ly on in the plan­ning stage.

In this arti­cle, we show you which suc­cess fac­tors real­ly count when plan­ning an Auto­Store ware­house, where typ­i­cal pit­falls lie and how you can secure and improve your deliv­ery capa­bil­i­ty in the long term. You will also find out when the sup­port of an inde­pen­dent plan­ning part­ner such as SOLTIC can make all the dif­fer­ence.

How does an AutoStore system work?

An Auto­Store is an auto­mat­ed stor­age and pick­ing sys­tem that is pri­mar­i­ly used in inter­nal logis­tics. It is based on a cubic stor­age sys­tem in which goods in bins are stacked on top of each oth­er in an alu­mini­um grid. Robots on the sur­face of the grid pick up the bins and take them to work sta­tions known as «ports». There, employ­ees pick the goods or check or process them.

Auto­Store is a high-den­si­ty goods-to-per­son sys­tem. It can be inte­grat­ed into exist­ing build­ings or exist­ing intral­o­gis­tics sys­tems and expand­ed on a mod­u­lar basis (more robots, ports, grids, bins).

Auto­Store ware­house

Which companies is AutoStore suitable for?

Whether an Auto­Store sys­tem is the right step can­not be answered in gen­er­al terms — because it is not about stan­dard solu­tions, but about cus­tomised strate­gies. In our dai­ly prac­tice, we see time and again how dif­fer­ent the start­ing sit­u­a­tions are — and how great the poten­tial is when tech­nol­o­gy and process real­ly fit togeth­er.

Whether it’s fast-grow­ing e‑commerce, sophis­ti­cat­ed spare parts logis­tics or indus­tri­al SMEs: the deci­sive fac­tor is not the size of the com­pa­ny, but the right com­bi­na­tion of item struc­ture, order pro­file and growth tar­gets. In prin­ci­ple, an Auto­store sys­tem is advan­ta­geous in the fol­low­ing envi­ron­ments:

• Com­pa­nies with high vol­umes of small parts and tight cut-off times
• Com­pa­nies with many dif­fer­ent con­tainer­ised items (i.e. suit­able dimen­sions and weights for stor­age in the Auto­Store bins)
• Lit­tle avail­able space
• Desire for scal­a­bil­i­ty of the system’s per­for­mance, which is pos­si­ble by adding more robots to the grid with­in a few hours
• Ide­al for exist­ing (exist­ing) hall heights of approx. 8 m
• Com­pa­nies with automa­tion expe­ri­ence

Challenges during implementation

The imple­men­ta­tion of an Auto­Store stor­age sys­tem is not a stan­dard project. It goes hand in hand with deep inter­ven­tions in estab­lished process­es, IT land­scapes and organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­tures. This is pre­cise­ly where tech­nol­o­gy and real per­for­mance are sep­a­rat­ed. In our expe­ri­ence, the fol­low­ing aspects are crit­i­cal suc­cess fac­tors:

As plan­ners, we sup­port our clients in answer­ing the ques­tions that com­pa­nies should ask them­selves when decid­ing in favour of or against an Auto­Store sys­tem: 

• How are the logis­tics process­es struc­tured over­all? Where does an Auto­Store sys­tem fit sen­si­bly into the end-to-end process land­scape?
• Which alter­na­tive stor­age and pick­ing sys­tems (auto­mat­ed or man­u­al) can be con­sid­ered? How do they dif­fer in terms of process per­for­mance and cost-effec­tive­ness (busi­ness case)?
• Are the items suit­able for con­tain­er-based stor­age in terms of dimen­sions, weight and phys­i­cal prop­er­ties?
• How are access fre­quen­cies and turnover rates dis­trib­uted at item lev­el (e.g. on the basis of an ABC analy­sis)?
• What is the cur­rent and future park­ing space require­ment? What min­i­mum sys­tem size is required and what expan­sion options should be con­sid­ered in the long term?
• What scal­ing and redun­dan­cy strate­gies (e.g. addi­tion­al robots, ports and con­tain­ers) are planned? How can expan­sion phas­es be mapped in a tech­ni­cal­ly and organ­i­sa­tion­al­ly sen­si­ble way dur­ing ongo­ing oper­a­tions?
• How should the Auto­Store ware­house be inte­grat­ed into the exist­ing IT land­scape, espe­cial­ly the Inven­to­ry man­age­ment sys­tems, be inte­grat­ed?
• What fire pro­tec­tion require­ments need to be tak­en into account? How can these be coor­di­nat­ed with author­i­ties and prop­er­ty insur­ers at an ear­ly stage?

AutoStore warehouse: planning and realisation

The plan­ning and imple­men­ta­tion of a con­tain­er stor­age sys­tem requires a struc­tured, holis­tic approach. Tech­ni­cal, process-relat­ed and eco­nom­ic aspects are close­ly inter­linked from the out­set.

Auto­Store visu­al­i­sa­tions of a SOLTIC cus­tomer project

AutoStore costs and purchase

As an end cus­tomer, you do not buy the Auto­Store sys­tem from Auto­Store itself, but via an Auto­Store part­ner, the so-called «inte­gra­tor». The inte­gra­tor han­dles the project as a sup­pli­er and often com­ple­ments the Auto­Store prod­ucts with its own prod­uct range (con­vey­ing tech­nol­o­gy, if applic­a­ble). Pick robot, var­i­ous oper­at­ing equip­ment, WMS sys­tems, etc.).

For an Auto­Store ware­house, you pay annu­al licence fees for the soft­ware pack­age and for the use of each Auto­Store robot. As with all auto­mat­ed sys­tems, we rec­om­mend con­clud­ing a ser­vice con­tract with the inte­gra­tor or Auto­Store part­ner. The type and scope of the con­tract depends heav­i­ly on the resources and exper­tise already avail­able with­in the com­pa­ny. SOLTIC will also sup­port you in draw­ing up the ser­vice con­tract.

Automated small parts warehouse AutoStore — Reference project

In the new logis­tics and ser­vice cen­tre of the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal Basel (USB) an Auto­Store sys­tem ensures that the hos­pi­tal is sup­plied with con­sum­ables. This is an auto­mat­ed small parts ware­house with 15,000 bin stor­age loca­tions.

Get an impres­sion in the video of the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal Basel, Depart­ment of Engi­neer­ing:

AutoStore alternatives

Although Auto­Store is a well-known sys­tem for auto­mat­ed con­tain­er stor­age, it is not the only solu­tion. Depend­ing on the ware­house struc­ture, vari­ety of items and access pat­terns, oth­er auto­mat­ed or semi-auto­mat­ed sys­tems can also make eco­nom­ic sense. A com­par­i­son of the dif­fer­ent tech­nolo­gies — from clas­sic stor­age and retrieval machines to shut­tle sys­tems and cus­tomised con­vey­or tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions — shows which sys­tems play to their strengths in which sce­nario. This enables com­pa­nies to select the opti­mum ware­house solu­tion for their require­ments.

Oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers of com­pact con­tain­er stor­age sys­tems include

• Grid­store
• Junghein­rich Pow­er­cube
• Oca­do Group «The Hive»
• Intel­li­s­tore
• Vol­ume DIVE

Automation rethought — your logistics, your advantage

A com­pact bin stor­age sys­tem such as Auto­Store increas­es space effi­cien­cy, process reli­a­bil­i­ty and scal­a­bil­i­ty — if the design, IT inte­gra­tion and process­es are right. With SOLTIC, you reduce risks, cre­ate trans­paren­cy in the busi­ness case and ensure that the solu­tion fits your process­es, not the oth­er way round.

Would you like to start your warehouse automation with foresight?