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Micro-fulfillment in the News Answering the call for micro-fulfillment It’s time once again for the MHLC Bastian Solutions launches webinar series on supply chain trends Robotic fulfillment system vendor Attabotics raises $50 million Supply Chain Startup: Automating the grocery store at Alert Innovation More Micro-fulfillment News Industry 4.0: Real Cases of Productivity, Efficiency and Profits Wednesday, December 16, 2020 | 2pm ET All Resources When major grocers like Walmart, Carrefour, Albertsons and H-E-B start trying out automation at the local level to facilitate fulfillment of online orders—other retailers take notice. The trend is called micro-fulfillment, and it involves the use of automated order-picking systems that boast a level of sophistication once found only in larger warehouses. The bet by these retailers is that, with the right type of automation, they can fill consumer orders for home delivery or store pickup faster and with much less labor than with a manual approach. In fact, most of these early forays into micro-fulfillment were started before the pandemic disrupted how we all live, eat and shop, with online grocery sales growing by 300% during the early part of the pandemic, according to research by FMI-The Food Industry Association. By 2025, according to a study by Mercatus , online grocery will account for 21.5% of total grocery sales. This rapid shift to online buying, especially in the grocery industry, has led to increased interest in using automation within stores or at relatively small, but highly automated facilities in densely populated areas. Micro-fulfillment calls for the shrinking down of automation, especially “goods-to-person” systems, to create efficient points for fulfillment close to customers. One concept envisioned by Alert Innovation is to combine conventional consumer shopping for fresh goods on one level of a store with automated micro-fulfillment for fast-moving grocery items on another level of […]