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In the United States, 250,000 manufacturing plants and warehouses support the activities of 4 million retail stores and e-commerce websites – and all of these operations carry inventory. But in the warehouses, less than 10 percent are using automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) to manage and move their inventories. That means the vast majority are still using racks and other storage solutions that require a lot of floor space (read: high real estate costs) and human labor. The nimblest of these operations, however, are extracting the full value of their real estate by integrating automation that ramps up their existing process, making them more productive without the need for huge capital outlays. In every warehouse or retail store there is an opportunity to add value, and the good news is that robotics and drones provide payback within three to six months (versus five to 10 years for AS/RS systems). There is a lot of value that can be eked out of just overlaying a piece of advanced technology in an existing facility, and a lot of smart companies are already benefitting from that. Anytime you can add more value the end result is going to be positive, irrespective of what environment you’re operating in or what market challenges you are dealing with. The road to automation isn’t going to be easy, nor is it going to be readily embraced by today’s supply chain organizations. In polling the executives that it works with across numerous industries, PINC has found that two-thirds of logistics spend is allocated to transportation and the remainder to warehousing. This is likely why so many companies are focused on innovations like self-driving vehicles. Interestingly enough, transportation only moves 10 percent of the average firm’s inventory, while 90% is sitting on the shelves or trailers at […]