How a vendor neutral WCS can optimize automation performance and order throughput

Economical megatrends drive continued adoption of warehouse automation

In the past decade, businesses have increasingly adopted warehouse automation technologies to meet escalating customer demands, while operating in an increasingly complex supply chain environment.

One key factor driving this growth are continued labor shortages; according to Gartner’s 2022 Supply Chain Technology User Wants and Needs survey, 59% of respondents said that labor availability issues were leading them to consider warehouse automation.

Other key factors are changing structural trends in consumer demand within eCommerce and omnichannel retailing, as well as 3PL logistics.

Despite the temporary reduction in retail and eCommerce caused by the economic slowdown in 2023, experts and businesses alike agree that the trend towards eCommerce, and the reshoring of manufacturing to the US and Europe to mitigate future supply chain disruption, is likely to continue to accelerate. In turn, warehouse automation revenues are expected to grow again in 2024 and return to double-digit growth in 2025, reaching USD 44 billion by 2028.

As a result, more than a quarter (26%) of warehouses are expected to be automated in 2027, up from 14% only a decade earlier. 

Challenges in operating mixed portfolios of automation equipment

Large warehouses and DCs with complex operations and very high throughput requirements typically leverage Material Handling Equipment (MHE), such as conveyors, shuttle systems and automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) to reliably fulfill large numbers of orders.

This creates a heterogenous automation landscape, that can address workflows from store-in to order picking and outbound processing.

Most businesses justify the substantial investment into material handling equipment with the expected boost in throughput and order processing capacity.

However, effectively managing these mixed portfolios of automation equipment presents significant challenges, including:

• Actual system performance falling short of projected increases in throughput and fulfillment capacity
• A lack of end-to-end visibility into the automation chain and material flow
• Tracing the cause of malfunctions and bottlenecks is time-consuming
• Material routing can not be changed fast enough to accommodate receipt changes or to avoid problem zones

Modern warehouse control systems (WCS) can help address these issues by providing a single point of integration and control for the different MHE systems: it controls the operation of a portfolio of automation equipment and orchestrates all components, optimizes the material flow across the warehouse.

Improving automation performance with modern WCS

To do so, a warehouse control system should meet the following requirements:

• Be vendor- and technology agnostic: Only solutions that address customers’ entire MHE portfolio can provide the unified control required to optimize MHE performance end-to-end. This means the WCS has to support automation equipment across vendors and categories.
• Continuous optimization of the material flow: A WCS establishes a point of unified control and management across the automation chain. It uses real-time data to ensure optimal goods routing through the warehouse and protect buffer zones. This allows quick adjustments of to material routes in case individual devices fail and ensures continued material flow. It also enables optimization strategies such as dynamically selecting the optimal transport route, interleaving or sequencing of transport orders.
• End-to-end visibility: A centralized WCS is a prerequisite for end-to-end visibility of the automation chain. Once established, it enables tracking of the material flow, down to individual items and barcodes, through the system. Real-time visualizations via virtual maps is a key requirement, and analytics will allow for continued operational optimization over time.
• Seamless vertical integration: By establishing a single point of data exchange and communication between the warehouse management system and the automation equipment, the WCS provides seamless vertical integration of warehouse processes, from the WMS to the logic controller (PLC) in the MHE. This allows for optimum control and performance of the MHE.
• Support for all common automation workflows: This includes ‘out of the box’ support for complexss automated operation, hybrid automation-workforce configurations and basic automation. The ability to accommodate customer-specific needs and automation scenarios, and adapt as requirements change, is also key for a successful WCS implementation.
• Offline emulation mode: By emulating interfaces and data flow between the WCS and the logic controllers in the MHE systems, customers can run offline simulations of different operational scenarios, before and after go-live. This allows for virtual performance testing, as well as operator training.

Efficient material flow creates significant operational value

Once implemented, the WCS close the functional gap between the WMS and the automation systems, and orchestrates material flow across the facility. To do so, it leverages information from the WMS and typically follows these steps:

• Determine origin and destination for material moves
• Determine the routing via different MHE systems
• Create the required transportation tasks
• Orchestrate transport tasks across different MHE systems
• Deliver items to destinations for outbound processing, for example to the order packing stations

Or

• Select storage locations based on physical attributes (e.g., item size, weight, load balancing) and manage the store-in via the required MHE systems.

Orchestrating this process and the associated tasks with a vendor-neutral WCS unlocks significant operational benefits for customers:

• Improved performance of the automation chain increases order throughput
• Material flow visualization, proactive routing updates and streamlined troubleshooting maximize uptime
• Customers can fully leverage their automation equipment and improve its ROI
• A single point of integration and control reduces deployment time, risk and cost
• Ensure long-term value thanks to a scalable software architecture that supports growing order volumes

Conclusion

Successful order processing has become a multidimensional, complex and costly requirement: up to 50% of variable costs incurred in a typical warehouse are associated with order fulfillment.

As the trend towards warehouse automation continues, there is a growing need for vendor-and technology-agnostic WCS. They control the operation of individual material handling systems and orchestrate all components, optimize material flow across the warehouse and provide visibility down to individual items as they move through the automation chain.

By seamlessly integrating the solution with their existing WMS, customers can successfully run a heterogenous automation landscape. In doing so, the WCS improves throughout and enables significant efficiency gains that have a direct impact on operational profitability.

How Infios’s Warehouse Control System  delivers results for our customers

Read how our WCS helped Infios customers improve order fulfillment processes and warehouse operations.

Engelbert Strauss

Europe’s top brand for workwear optimizes order fulfillment in their highly automated facility with Infios’s warehouse control system, achieving up to 12,000 picks and 4,000 shipped order per hour. Learn more here.

Boot Barn

The leading western apparel retailer manages their automation and conveying solution with Infios’s warehouse control system. Following its implementation, Boot Barn experienced a 50% increase in picking productivity and a 25% increase in throughput compared to the operations in the original warehouse.