The Material Handling Blog

The fog of peak season. Does this sound like a similar experience to all warehouse operations team members? It’s earlier than usual and you know you have a very long day ahead of you. The building pulses with an electrifying energy but it's a frenetic, anxious feeling that everyone has in the pit of their stomach. The team knows that its “go time” as the customer order volume is going to be 3X the norm. As you walk out of the office and into the warehouse you are met with the sound of conveyor belts humming and the ceaseless beeping noise of forklifts darting all over the building. What is normally an orderly row of neatly stacked goods near pack out, now resembles a maze, as your team scrambles to locate items with urgency. Every corner of the warehouse is in motion, every aisle alive with the chaos of associates picking, workstations loaded with boxes for packout, and trailers are everywhere.

More and more people, especially young adults, are moving into cities. To reach this increasingly important market segment, retailers need to find a profitable and efficient way to do urban fulfillment.

Today’s retail stores are evolving, but what does the future hold? Could AGVs or augmented reality speed order picking and take fulfillment to the next level? In the future, will we ever have to go into a store again?