Minimising Warehouse Costs Using Density and Robotics

Just like any other property, the cost of warehousing is subject to the whims of supply and demand. AutoStore Business Development Manager for Australia and New Zealand, Julian Brancaccio said vacancy rates across commercial and industrial warehousing in Sydney are down to 0.04%. What makes that figure scarier is that it refers to stock that has already been built and the majority already leased. “We’re seeing rate rises of between $200 per square meter all the way up to almost $400 per square meter,” he said. “Customers are asking, ‘How can we get denser? Can we use conveyor systems to increase efficiency? How can we lower the price per square meter by making everything denser?’ That is one of the biggest trends we have seen. “Labor costs for processes like pipe fabrication Australia  is another huge trend that’s forcing organisations to automate and reduce footprint at the same time.” One of the options for denser warehousing is cube storage. “Some solutions currently in the market are dense, however their racking only goes up to two and a half meters, so anything above is a wasted opportunity,” Brancaccio said.

When it comes to automation in intralogistics, robotics is the way forward. “Automation is known, but robotics is new. It is a wave that has come in the last five years to disrupt the market and provide a cheaper alternative,” says Julian. “There’s a lot of moving parts to this solution. For example, there are a lot of vendors that do not have a significant partner network to be able to support the structural steel fabrication products they have in the region. That is where a lot of these kinds of vendors and solutions fall short. They are not able to get their solution into the market and set up a reference site. “It’s one thing announcing a partnership with an integrator, but it’s another thing to have a reference site people can see. There is a lot of interest in terms of what the solutions are and how they work, but the customer wants to know who’s the edge?” Brancaccio believes an AutoStore solution can deliver ROI in just a few years. “If you fulfill 3000 Bins per day as an example, it takes around 15 people. For us in an AutoStore system you’re probably looking at two people to pick 3000 Bins because everything becomes automated,” he said.

AutoStore is addressing the local market needs through Bin presentation. “There’s two things you’ve got to look for in a solution. There’s Bin density, how many Bins can fit on one square meter, and robot density,” Brancaccio said. “We’re denser and lower, which helps with fire compliance as well. AutoStore’s Bin density is 40 Bins per square meter which makes it the densest solution on the market. “The robot density of other solutions is usually around one robot per 50 square meters. On 1000 square meters, there are around 20 robots to fit that space and they can present around 30 Bins (plastic tubs) per hour. Comparatively the AutoStore system, on 1000 square meters we can have around 166 Robots and present 30 Bins per hour. Because a warehouse footprint is so expensive, AutoStore can help scale using that to get more out of it. Robot density is key.”