AutoStore on Demand live in six months

The company says: "Not only does it minimise unexpected issues during the implementation process, it reduces the risk that an automation system won’t meet your expectations for performance and return on investment.

"But experience has another benefit that often gets overlooked: with each implementation of an automated system, new capabilities are addressed."

Early users of a particular solution often have special requirements that aren’t included in the standard system. With AutoStore, which has a limited number of configuration variables, these special requirements are accommodated through software customisation.

For each new implementation, the customer is assumed to have unique requirements and the process of developing specifications to address those requirements, customising the software to accommodate them and testing the customisations is built into the process. This provides AutoStore users the ultimate in flexibility to tailor the system to their requirements but extends the implementation timeline and adds costs.

This is where specific experience with a particular technology translates into tangible value for new users. Forward-looking technology providers, such as Swisslog, use the customisation process to identify new features that have broad applicability. In the case of AutoStore, these customisations are then integrated into the AutoStore Director software within SynQ as standard features, allowing new users to benefit from previous customisations.

Generally, the more systems you implement, the more robust your software becomes until, at some point, customisation of every system becomes unnecessary and an entirely new benefit of experience becomes available: standardised systems that, by integrating multiple features from previous customisations, are able to meet the requirements of many users.

The company adds: "At Swisslog, we’ve implemented more than 160 AutoStore systems, many of which required customisations that were integrated into the SynQ AutoStore Director, giving it extremely robust functionality. As a result, it’s no longer necessary to customise software for every AutoStore user.

"With this robust, standard functionality, we can offer standard AutoStore systems, or AutoStore on Demand, that cuts implementation time and software costs by as much as half. Typical AutoStore implementations take roughly a year from contract signing to go-live. With AutoStore on Demand you can go live in as little as six months and save money in the process."

Because AutoStore is modular and scalable, a standard solution doesn’t mean one-size-fits-all. You can choose a configuration—number of bins, robots and ports—based on your inventory and throughput requirements. And, you can always expand the system in the future, adding more storage modules, robots or ports. You can even move to robotic picking with the addition of ItemPiQ robots controlled by the same software that runs AutoStore.

With an AutoStore-on-Demand solution from Swisslog you get a shorter implementation timeline while benefitting from unique-to-Swisslog features, such as the Enterprise Touch operator interface that enhances operator productivity and allows the operator to reconfigure bins on the fly.