A PSM is an intelligent system of conveyor belts and scanning technology that automatically sorts parcels more quickly than manual sorting.

The latest PSMs will be installed in Royal Mail’s Leeds, Plymouth and Exeter mail centres, each one increasing processing capabilities by 21,000 parcels per hour. Leeds’ second PSM will go live in August, followed by the first PSMs for Plymouth in September and Exeter in October.

Over the last eight years, Royal Mail has rolled out 36 PSMs in 28 mail centres across the UK.

Neil Chaplain, engineering and process design director, Royal Mail, said: “Royal Mail’s ongoing investment in automation is helping us to modernise and significantly improve efficiency.

“The rollout of these new PSMs will help us to meet the increasing consumer demand for next-day parcel delivery and will help contribute to our efforts to provide a consistently reliable service.”

The delivery firm has also recently looked to automate part of its parcel offering by introducing a locker collection service. For the first time, Royal Mail customers will be able to drop off parcels and returns at automated lockers, following a partnership with Parcel Pending by Quadient.

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The UK supermarket – part of the Walmart Group – worked with robotics solutions provider Swisslog on a customised AutoStore system which could grow in order to accommodate expansion and changing requirements.

“The system could be installed in a phased way without disrupting Asda’s ongoing operation,” explained Ant Everett, head of capacity and engineering at Asda Logistics Services.

Before installing the AutoStore system, load cranes had to be removed from the area, and builders had to install a “robust” mezzanine level on which to construct the system.

The Asda warehouse features 164 Robots and 70,000 Bins spread over an area of 1,415 sq m (15,230 sq ft).

Pallet loads of in-bound goods are conveyed to one of six decant stations, where a worker transfers products from a pallet into the AutoStore bins. Robots place the filled bins on top of one another in the grid. This holds the bins and serves as a track for the robots along which to travel. A wireless system controls the battery-operated robots and moves the bins to where they need to be.

The robots present a constant stream of bins to the picking port. As the bins are stored on top of one another, the robots have to do a bit of digging. With their help, specific goods are brought to the surface as and when they’re needed. 

Bins that contain faster-moving merchandise are generally stored near the top of the grid, while the slower-moving merchandise naturally sinks to the bottom. When digging for a specific item, the robots will temporarily store the bins that were on top of the required one on nearby stacks.

According to the collaboration, the robots are always working ahead of the employees operating the picking ports, so there are no interruptions in the workflow when the warehouse team members collate orders for store delivery. 

Swisslog worked with Asda during each phase of this £15.2mn project, from the design to the installation of the new automated system. Asda stressed the investment – which is the largest of its kind in the UK – has been “worth every penny” as the picking rate of the existing system was doubled, and the new solution had an accuracy rate of 99.8%.

“The result is warehousing at peak efficiency,” added Everett. “The AutoStore system reduces unused space and maximises storage capacity, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency.”

These stations also make it possible for the workers to scan and register the loads and dispose of waste and cardboard with maximum efficiency.

A brand new report looks at how retailers across the UK are investing in warehouse robotics – the DeliveryX Warehousing 2024 report will be officially launched during RetailX’s festival of research: Ecommerce World Review.

On 27 March 2024, a webinar session will pull out the key findings of the sector report, including a look at how Boots cobots improve staff wellbeing; how Dunelm is turning to solar power; and B&Q has transformed stores into fulfilment centres. Register now!

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However, experience suggests that the UK’s third-party logistics companies (3PLs) haven’t yet fully embraced owning and investing in more sophisticated high performance automation. To maximise the potential of robotics, there are a number of obstacles 3PLs need to overcome, writes Simon Jones, senior sales executive at Exotec.

Open-book contracts
Open-book contracts have served both 3PLs and their customers well over the last few decades. During this period of low inflation, incremental productivity improvements were adequate for both sides, and they required relatively low investment. Gain share agreements and annual productivity improvement targets were sufficient as carrot and stick to reduce costs slowly over time, or at least mitigate the effects of low inflation.

However, with an open-book contract, the 3PL usually makes most of their revenues by adding a small management charge percentage on top of all the costs they incur running the operation, before passing the bill to their customer.

One of the biggest costs of a manual fulfilment operation is the labour force. If automation is deployed in a warehouse that reduces the labour requirement by 80%, the revenue and profit generated by the unfortunate 3PL drops by a similar amount. No one would blame them for finding this a difficult initiative to encourage, let alone expecting them to make a multi-million-pound investment in the automation required to achieve it! Of course, 3PLs are a resourceful lot, and some of them have acknowledged this challenge and formulated creative solutions for it.

Two of the reasons often given for the popularity of open-book contracts in 3PL fulfilment are the reduction of risk for the 3PL, which allows them to operate on very low margins, and the comfort the customer feels because they can see the 3PL is not making excess profits from their contract. This does not necessarily mean that they are receiving the best value, however. The customer is only getting the highest value if their 3PL’s operating costs are also as low as they can be, and without the use of effective automation, this is very unlikely to be the case in today’s environment.

Short-term contracts
In the past, contracts as short as two years have been prevalent in 3PL fulfilment, although three to five years has become more common in recent years. Even these contract lengths are too short for a 3PL to get a return on the scale of investment needed to reduce the labour required by 80%+ and minimise the warehouse space used. An 80%+ reduction in labour is the kind of productivity target that should be aimed for to meet the key twin objectives of eliminating the risk from the labour shortage and minimising the effects of past and future inflation.

Customer owned vs 3PL owned warehouses
There are a myriad of contract permutations and hybrid structures when it comes to 3PL contracts in the UK. One of the most fundamental variables is the ownership of the building where the fulfilment operation will be. If it is owned by the customer, the 3PL will only be able to offer low-impact, easily relocatable automation as part of the contract. This will make relatively little improvement to productivity and may even reduce the storage density compared to a manual operation. In a customer owned warehouse, the best way to achieve the target 80% labour reduction is for the customer to own the automation and the 3PL to operate it. If the 3PL owns the warehouse, then it can make the investment with low risk, assuming the selected automation has the flexibility to be used for a variety of clients.

Despite the challenges, progressive 3PLs are beginning to rethink and reshape how they operate in order to make automation solutions easier to adopt for the benefit of their customers and their businesses, from putting automation at the heart of their new contract proposals to creating large scale multi-tenant sites. I believe technology and commercial innovation will be markers of success for 3PLs over the next few years, and it will be fascinating to see how the sector develops over the rest of the 2020s.

Simon Jones, senior sales executive at Exotec

The post GUEST COMMENT The barriers to widespread GTP robotics adoption by UK 3PLs appeared first on InternetRetailing.

The warehouse automation market is expected to continue to grow by around 15% annually between now and 2027. As we look ahead to 2024, there are a number of trends that will not only drive this growth, but also determine the direction in which the sector is evolving.

Automation and 3PLs
Third-party logistic companies (3PLs) play a major role in the UK logistics sector; particularly in ecommerce fulfilment and retail replenishment. In the past, if they have used warehouse automation for a contract, it has usually been owned by their customer, and often the building is too.

More recently, some 3PLs have been using person-to-goods automation and “Kiva style” shelf-to-person systems for suitable contracts, to provide their customer with some limited productivity improvements.

In 2024 we will begin to see 3PLs starting to offer their customers the opportunity for considerable cost reduction by utilising more sophisticated, higher performance robot-based ASRS tote solutions. Although requiring a higher initial outlay, the throughput, productivity and storage density improvements delivered by such systems mean that the value and cost reduction for a 3PL’s customers will be difficult to resist.

The benefit of high performance robot-based ASRS solutions can be leveraged even further by 3PLs when used in their multi-customer sites. Some 3PLs are taking this step to ensure their success in the future. This will allow them to provide customers large and small with ultra-fast order cycle times, very low unit fulfilment costs and rapid processing of returns into sellable stock.

On the other side of the coin, retail customers will put increasing pressure on their 3PL partners to drive down storage and unit fulfilment costs in real terms, citing high throughput flexible automation as the means to achieve this.

Ongoing retail and ecommerce demands
Ecommerce continues to be an increasingly popular way for people to shop, putting enormous pressure on the supply chain as shoppers expect to receive their orders as quickly as possible. For the UK in particular, the ecommerce market is expected to grow by almost 22% each year between 2023 and 2028.

Retail stores won’t be going away any time soon either. There remains significant demand for physical premises in many retail segments, so there is a need to maintain consistent stock levels.

Managing both ecommerce and retail operations in the same warehouse can be tricky, especially when using automation. However, we expect to see an increasing number of organisations doing this, as the presence of flexible robotics systems makes it much easier to operate fulfilment for both ecommerce and store replenishment from the same site and even in the same automation.

The potential cost savings from the use of a single automation system to handle both ecommerce and physical retail are huge, with some of the benefits including no duplication of stock and a much smaller warehouse footprint, leading to big savings on property costs.

Labour shortages will persist
At the start of 2023, I shared that labour shortages will define this year for the warehouse and logistics industry, and this challenge isn’t going away any time soon. If anything, the labour shortage will get worse, even if the economy slows a little.

Businesses are experiencing high turnover levels and are struggling to plug the skills gap as a result of the nature of warehouse work. This in turn makes it more difficult for the remaining workers. Warehouse operators that are still using outdated mostly manual systems will feel a squeeze on their labour force in 2024 – and that’s where modern automation comes in.

Employing robotic solutions solves challenges that businesses are experiencing now and into the coming year. For example, mundane, repetitive and labour-intensive tasks can be completed by robots. This can help warehouse operators keep up with shifting consumer demand, while reducing the strain on their employees.

If businesses are to retain their staff and encourage new people to join at a time when people are looking for stable, fulfilling and safe work, they must implement systems that foster a secure environment.

2024 will no doubt bring about challenges for the warehouse and logistics industries, however there will be plenty of reward for those that get ahead, assess their current operations and implement innovative strategies to meet customer and consumer demands.

Simon Jones, sales executive, Exotec

The post PREDICTIONS Warehouse automation 2024: 3PLs turning to sophisticated robot-based solutions appeared first on InternetRetailing.

According to reports in The Times, glitches with the new system, which was introduced last year, had “adverse effects on both our operations and customers’ ordering experience”. In turn there were additional costs to support order fulfilment and a one-off provision against stock that could not be sold.

Pre-tax profits were down by 76% to £9m in the 52 weeks to the end of March. The retailer has been able to recoup and achieve double-digit revenue growth in the fourth quarter, raising yearly revenue up by 1.4% to £221m.

A spokeswoman told The Times: “Despite challenging consumer retail conditions, End is performing well and continues to scale its operations to serve our global customer base. We remain focused on expanding our capabilities as we continue our transition into a modern, technology-led and scalable business.”

The menswear retailer also stressed that it was “confident that the inventory management processes and system issues” were “now in good order”.

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The privately owned Very Group reported flagship Very brand revenues of £1.8bn in its latest financial year, the 52 weeks to July 2 2022, down 4% on the previous year. Its retail sales came in at £1.4bn (-7.7%), compared with record pandemic sales. The wider Very Group reported group revenues of £2.1bn (-7.3%) over the same period, and pre-tax profits of £63.9bn (+2.2%).

At the time, Very Group chief financial officer Ben Fletcher said its “robust performance” was “driven by ongoing structural growth in the Very brand, our integrated business model – and, of course, our amazing people” which “continues to prove resilient as we adapt to changing customer behaviour”.

The roots of the Very Group go back to mail order catalogues in the 1860s. The Very brand launched in 2009 to serve online shoppers. The Very website is easy to navigate, whether through search or primary categories from designer brands and toys to electricals. Filters to narrow the choice include product, activity, colour, fit, price range, delivery speed and customer ratings.

Products are illustrated through zoomable images, while information includes delivery times, reviews and star ratings, plus a fit checker for clothing. Shoppers can save items for later, or share them via email, Google Plus, or social media channels. Recommendations include other items from the same brand, as well as ‘people who bought this’. From the landing page, shoppers can download mobile or Android apps, or click through to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube.

The retailer, whose fully automated Skygate warehouse opened in March 2020, offers one-day delivery as standard for orders placed by 10pm, Sunday to Friday, at a cost of £3.99. Premium delivery services include nominated day, direct from supplier and larger item services. Click and collect – from one of “thousands” of stores, including Post Offices and Yodel network collection points – costs £3, or is free for orders of £30 or more. Returns can be made for up to 28 days, through a Yodel or Post Office collection point, free of charge using a pre-paid label.

This case study originally appeared the RetailX UK Top500 2023 report. Download the report in full to discover:

• Strategic overview of the UK ecommerce market
• Exclusive Interview with Sherilyn Paterson of JD Group
• Case study: Dunelm, Toolstation, Yours Clothing, Cass Art, MenKind, The Works, Swarovski

The post Very: using automation for speed and relevance appeared first on InternetRetailing.

This brings us to the second factor hurting logistics: poor decision making stemming from a failure to use already available data. This causes a reliance on manual decision making without full visibility.

We are now years into this period of supply chain uncertainty and rising logistics costs that eat into revenues, drive-up prices and create uncertainty for business decision makers. Yet too many businesses still lack the control and flexibility over their logistics processes that would ensure they understand the threats and challenges facing their supply chain. This is all contributing to logistical uncertainty and preventing businesses from making decisions for long-term success.

Yet, the notion that brands are helpless to fight back against external volatility simply isn’t true. What is needed from businesses is further investment in automated supply chain tools that improve efficiency and free up time for logistics managers. Less time putting out fires means more time working on strategic goals for long term success.

Establishing a baseline
The importance of clear baselining processes for a company’s supply chain is often underestimated. Continuously evaluating shipping partners and routes appears, on its face, to be a burdensome process unlikely to yield any real cost savings. However, when working with leading brands in the retail space we have found that even a simple evaluation of shipping lanes can yield significant opportunities to improve efficiency and performance. The reason is that this allows a business to look at the infrastructure of their supply chain to quickly assess whether it’s fit for purpose and respond accordingly. Until now, the ability to understand how an event will impact supply chain operations has been slow and often misjudged, leading to ongoing challenges for organisations.

This was all part of a mentality that saw unstable logistics and supply chain problems as inevitable. They aren’t. They are a symptom of the fact that businesses do not have the infrastructure in place to take a new contract, review it and take steps forward to put pressure on the market they are operating in.

Establishing a baseline can bring a company’s supply chain data into one place to provide a bird’s eye view. Yet baselining your supply chain data is just the first step. Truly smart supply chains put this data to good use via automated response tools that quickly evaluate carrier and procurement processes and respond to potentially disruptive shocks in the most effective way.

Automation can unlock supply chain efficiency
When it comes to supply chain efficiency, automation can be a real difference maker for businesses. In many ways, automated supply chain tools truly unlock the data gathered from regular auditing.

A key example of this process in action is procurement. Procurement cycles for carriers, logistics and warehousing partners traditionally take place on an annual basis. For those businesses with more regular data analysis in place could consider reducing this timeframe.

However, while this could provide a more accurate reflection of the market, running a procurement exercise can take between six and twelve months. That is unless an organisation has automated the three main aspects of the process: data acquisition, the procurement process itself and contracting.

Businesses need to look at what will put them in the strongest position during an unsettled period. Reviewing contracts with suppliers more regularly is one option for them, but they need the right technology in place to make it as efficient and worthwhile as possible, so they are armed with the insights that will enable smarter decision making.

Automated logistics tools give businesses the ability to understand the impact of every decision they make. Grounded in data, they remove uncertainty and give organisations the confidence to make changes that will bring a positive impact on their operations. Complex changes such as investing in an automated multi-carrier model can have significant benefits for supply chain resilience and overall performance, but business leaders must understand which carriers will work best for them and have the flexibility to shift at the optimal moment.

The bottom line is that businesses do not have to remain at the mercy of external shocks, unpredictable global events, and the ensuing supply chain volatility. What’s more, consumers are starting to acknowledge that businesses are not helpless in this situation – recent data from 7bridges showed that over one in three consumers (39%) are now less likely to buy from brands that blame supply chain issues for product shortages.

With inflation still high and consumer patience low it’s time for businesses to invest in technology with a demonstrable impact in protecting revenue, increasing efficiency and contributing to long term performance improvements. Automation, baselining and using technology to be proactive against supply chain risk is all key.

Philip Ashton, CEO and co-founder, 7bridges

The post GUEST COMMENT Understanding the true cost of poor logistics and how automation can help appeared first on InternetRetailing.

While homeware sees a larger proportion of its sales take place instore rather than online, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a pureplay market for furniture. Quite the contrary. As more Millennials and Gen Z-ers age and start to buy furniture for their first homes, so their online and mobile-first habits are starting to reshape the way homeware is bought.

One company that was quick to see this trend and to tap into it has been Furniturebox. Monty George and Dan Beckles, both aged 25, started it straight after leaving Bishop Wordsworth’s Grammar School in Salisbury. George is a serial entrepreneur who was turning over up to £200,000 a year selling products such as computer tablets and phone cases on eBay when he was still at school. He persuaded Beckles to turn down a place at university and join him in setting up Furniturebox in 2015.

They chose furniture because few companies were then selling it online, so there was a gap in the market.

George says: “I could see that there was a huge market for furniture and it was very underdeveloped online. I bought a couple of containers of furniture and persuaded Dan to join forces with me to sell it online. That is how the business started. It has been an amazing seven years of growth. We know that the model we have now is highly efficient for profit generation. We feel we can roll that out in other markets – in America, Germany and elsewhere. In the furniture industry, there aren’t really any other ecommerce companies doing the same thing as us.”

Growth exploded during Covid-19 lockdowns, with most furniture shops closed and customers stuck at home with cash to burn. Sales have since risen from £9.4mn in 2020 to £16.7mn as last year, Furniturebox was ranked as the fastest-growing small business in the South West in the Sunday Times’ list of the UK’s most successful private companies. It also picked up the same accolade in the popular ‘Lightning 50’ league table which tracks growth rates for hundreds of online businesses across the UK.

Beckles says: “We saw huge, huge growth during Covid. Customer service is really important to us – we have such good reviews and lots of people started buying furniture online for the first time knowing that we were a trusted brand.”

The key to managing this growth – and what is propelling the company forward – is automation. “This has been incredibly important to us because we sell through nine different channels in the UK, but we are now expanding in the US through the big furniture store Wayfair,” says Beckles.

“Without automation, we were having to draw data from different channels and everything was being done manually. Monty and I were cutting and pasting orders onto Amazon on a Sunday night before starting the new week on a Monday. It was exhausting. Suddenly all those orders were inputted electronically and it revolutionised the business.”

He adds: “Finally, we had an automated central hub for all our activities – from sales to stock management. Customer service can leave comments on orders and our shipping was so much more efficient. It means that we have been able to cut back on staffing doing manual administration and reinvest those savings in other areas of the business.”

Furniturebox expects global sales to grow from 5% to up to 50% of the business over the next few years, with the company having just broken into the US market, which will accelerate their growth still further, driven by the pair’s competitive spirit.

Beckles and George were football mad schoolboys at a rugby playing grammar school. Goalkeeper Monty played for the Bournemouth and Portsmouth youth teams, while central defender Beckles was on Bristol Rovers’ books. It was their closeness on the pitch which made them realise they could work well together in business.

George says: “We bonded because we wanted to play football whereas our school pushed us towards rugby.”

Beckles adds: “We saw how competitive we both were on the football field and we knew that would work in business.”

This feature was authored by Paul Skeldon and originally appeared in the RetailX Europe Homeware 2023 report. Download it in full to discover:
Why did the homeware market shrink in 2022?
Why homeware has the lowest ecommerce uptake compared to all the other retail sectors?
How does Ikea attract ten times more traffic to its website than its nearest rival?

The post Automation key to managing Furniturebox’s growth appeared first on InternetRetailing.

But there’s a difference between realistic predictions to inform strategy and out-there theories just for fun. The reality is that automation is happening in the last mile, but it’s about improving the efficiency of current processes, cutting costs, and boosting profits rather than creating a futuristic utopia.

In order to predict what’s on the horizon for the last mile, and how carriers can use automation to inform their strategy, firstly we need to evaluate current automation solutions, analyse their effectiveness and then determine what (realistic) future developments we could expect to see in the next few years.

Parcel lockers continue to automate out-of-home delivery – but not take over
Parcel lockers are an automated alternative to traditional PUDO points, providing an immediate range of benefits. They are often available 24/7, allowing consumers to collect at their convenience. They are self-service, saving time having to queue at the counter and designed to handle collections and drop-offs, satisfying an increased demand in returns and C2C sends. They also provide parcel consolidation for carriers, increasing route efficiency and long-term sustainability.

However, although lockers are certainly popular, they won’t take over traditional PUDO – we expecta mixture of lockers and PUDO points to make up carriers’ out-of-home (OOH) networks.

There are several reasons for this. Firstly, lockers come at a much larger expense than traditional PUDO locations, which tend to be in useful, high-traffic locations like convenience stores and have minimal costs compared to siting, installing and maintaining a large hardware device like a locker. If carriers want to increase network density, the easier and cheaper option will generally be to add new PUDO locations.

In our Post-Covid report, when we asked which OOH options customers would most likely use, preferences were almost completely even between the three formats of parcel lockers, parcel counters and post offices. Some customers prefer parcel lockers, but not all. To deliver the best customer experience, a mixture of different PUDO options must be available for customers to choose from.

Route planning is the backbone of last mile automation
Route planning is an essential aspect of last mile automation, as better routes equate to more parcel deliveries in fewer miles. That means better efficiency, lower costs and fewer CO2 emissions for long-term sustainability.

The next step for automation in this area is calculating the likelihood of delivery success for each stop and factoring in real-time updates to divert to OOH. To achieve this, carriers need smarter access to consumer behaviour, revealing insights about when they are in, what times deliveries have failed before and what times increase the chances of each stop on a route having a successful delivery. In addition, if a stop is predicted to fail, the technology must be able to incorporate a re-direct to an out-of-home location nearby, increasing the overall success rate and efficiency.

Customer communications to get more advanced
Keeping consumers in the loop helps to provide a great delivery experience. Automation already plays a key role here, with many carriers using automated systems that send out branded communications when the parcel has been received or is out for delivery.

The next step is for the automated systems to become more intelligent – for example, sending the communications at a time when they’re most likely to be useful and visible to a customer, or connecting to other systems to enrich the comms with more customer data. For example, if a parcel is on the way, these communications could be used to set up redirects to OOH from the consumer, which ties into the route planning system.

As well as real-time tracking, carriers can use data to send out more personalised communications. For example, if a consumer consistently uses a particular locker bank to send their packages, and space is available there, why not notify them to help encourage more outbound volume into the parcel locker?

Robotic deliveries aren’t on the horizon
We couldn’t talk about automation in the last mile without bringing up automated delivery robots. The reality is that robots will not likely find broader last-mile use cases. This is partly due to their small capacity which in most last-mile use cases would limit them to a very small number of deliveries per journey – the exact opposite of carrier efficiency.

In addition, robots can only be used when consumers are guaranteed to be in to accept delivery. If the consumer isn’t there, it’s a failed journey, and the robot must travel back as no method of unattended delivery can be achieved. The robot can’t remove the package by itself and can’t wait hours for the consumer to return. In such cases, it’s a total loss of time, resources and money.

Finally, these robots are expensive for carriers to purchase, maintain, and potentially replace if people steal or damage them. Comparing all those factors to the cost of a delivery man with a van, who can deliver more parcels and at lower cost, there’s one clear winner for carriers.

Drones will struggle to get off the ground
Drone delivery is another popular topic that keeps coming around for last-mile innovation. However, they simply aren’t practical for last-mile delivery. They are weather dependent, require safe spaces to land, require regulatory approval, and they need expensive and buggy self-piloting tech to be scalable. McKinsey estimates that drone deliveries will become similarly economically efficient to a single van when one operator can manage 20 drones simultaneously – something which is not yet legal in most jurisdictions, and which is technologically a long way from being feasible.

Portable lockers haven’t emerged, but maybe self-driving will
Vehicle automation in the last mile is largely focused on self-driving technology. However, as a person will still be needed to hand parcels over to consumers it’s unlikely that we will see fully driverless vehicles in the last mile.

However, while they’re still some way off for the last mile, driverless vehicles might be more appropriate in the mid-mile, particularly between two fixed distribution centres on repeatedly travelled routes, which could save costs and free drivers up to travel different routes.

Will the parcel industry ever be fully autonomous?
The pace of change in logistics tends to be fairly slow, but given the long-term trend of parcel volumes is clearly still heading upwards, efficiencies are only becoming more valuable over time, and automation promises to deliver plenty.

In a decade’s time, we might see a quite different last-mile, where a consumer might see a curated set of delivery options on the checkout based on their previous purchases, location and preferences. These options probably won’t include delivery by drone or autonomous ground vehicle, unless the regulatory and technological picture changes rapidly. Our shopper might select delivery to a parcel locker, served by multiple carriers using semi-autonomous vehicles based on intelligent real-time routing, and the package could be picked and shipped largely autonomously out of the warehouse – but it will still probably be placed into the locker by a human.

The vagaries and challenges of B2C last-mile delivery will always require human input and ingenuity. That’s not to mention the power of friendly interaction and service with a smile, which greatly affects how customers experience their delivery.

In practice, most successful last-mile automation won’t be focused on replacing the human factor, but on improving productivity, removing friction and reducing costs. From a last-mile business’ perspective, getting the workforce on board with automation rather than resisting these changes will require thinking carefully about where automation can add value for employees as well as to the bottom line.

Ayomide Ayofe, senior product strategy manager at Doddle

The post GUEST COMMENT Real life or fantasy: a realistic look at achievable automation in the last mile appeared first on InternetRetailing.

Alan Jackson, VP solution engineering & presales at Fluent Commerce, kicked off the discussions with a session dedicated to Order Management Systems (OMS). He explained that retailers often struggle to gather their inventory into a single view at scale.

“The inventory numbers that we see are really high. Being able to process that quickly and accurately, as well as being able to present that into a view that’s is in a centralised place, is always a big challenge,” he noted.

Retailers also need to “dynamically” ensure they are not overselling or underselling. “If you’re not tapping into the range and availability as much as you could be then that starts to impact downstream – cancellation rates, customer satisfaction and return rates,” warned Jackson.

When asked why an existing ERP solution or ecommerce platform couldn’t be used to deal with these issues, he responded: “I can see why organisations went down that path.

“In a simpler world of a single warehouse or not really aggressive online commerce strategies, which would’ve been a historical view – it was a simpler model. But as you start to add complex business models – adding more brands, moving into new regions, diversifying where your stock comes from, including suppliers, opening up store networks in new countries – all of these situations mean that the technology is not really fit for purpose.

“This new bred of distributor order management concept requires the system to be super flexible and it is able to really close this gap.”

Fluent Commerce’s session was followed by a look first DeliveryX sector report which covers the UK warehousing sector and its impact on ecommerce operations. Download the full DeliveryX Warehousing 2023 report here.

The session touched on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and warehouse automation but it was the 1pm presentation that really delved into the subject. Martin Donohoe, regional marketing manager, UK & Ireland, and Kane Edwards, UK business development manager of Locus Robotics, used a selection of videos (including the one below) to showcase their Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs).

While Locus Robotics talked viewers through the benefits of their range of robotic warehouse solutions, Donohoe was keen to highlight the importance of collaboration between technology and human warehouse workers: “One of the things that we see is all of the bots end up getting names. When we visit one of our customers you’ll see ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Boty-MacBot-Face’. People seem to enjoy working with the bots.”

Edwards concluded Locus’ session by saying what an exciting area automation and robotics is to work in, one that is “constantly seeing new developments” and hinted at impressive things to come.

To finish the first day of DeliveryX LIVE, Andrew Turner, chief sales officer, of day one sponsor Fulfilmentcrowd, also looked at opportunities. He took the audience through maximising ecommerce growth from the UK to the EU.

When asked about the challenges of Brexit for any retailer looking to expand from the UK into Europe, Turner joked that this was a “negative question” when there were some real “positive positions” now.

“A massive opportunity exists for UK brands to sell their products into Europe, via their own website or via marketplaces like Amazon, bool.com in the Netherlands, or Cdiscount in France. There’s definitely a great opportunity, and the way to unlock it is to locate inventory inside the EU and sell from that location.

“That proximity to the consumer will give you a better customer experience all around. You get faster delivery speed, you get lower shipping costs and customers start to learn about your product in their country and will start to place orders with you.”

He did warn that there may be “some organisational matters” to deal with such as registration and ensuring that the inbound flow of stock is redirected into that new warehouse. But through the right partnerships retailers can “give a better service proposition”.

All of the session from day one of DeliveryX LIVE will be available to watch on demand in the coming days. The conference continues on Wednesday 21 June with a home delivery focus.

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