Winning the race, the fleet’s legs implement autonomous mobile robots

The Fleet Fleet is the largest exclusivity of retailer’s specialty stores focused on providing premium service to runners, walks and fitness enthusiasts of all skills. To improve their operations, they installed autonomous mobile robots in their deposit.

According to a study of 250 global companies by the Mckinsey advisory firm, 91% of carriers and 75% of logistical service providers have implemented a warehouse management system. In contrast, autonomous mobile robots have been implemented in less than 8% of US deposits.

When new industrial technology appears, they are large companies that first implement them. There is a delay before smaller companies begin to implement technology. Fleet feet is a smaller company. They run a 75,000 -square -foot distribution center. AMR is much more often applied to warehouses of over 250,000 square meters.

Further, where large warehouses can hire hundreds of collectors, fleet legs had less than 20. A large part of the AMRS value proposal has improved the efficiency of intake. Could a warehouse with so few collectors receive good repayments from AMRS?

Flot’s foot supply chain

The goal for the Carboro -based -based seller in North Carolina is to make each store a center for the local driving community. Shop associates are expected to be active in the local management community they serve. The company also uses technology to provide premium services to its customers.

The process of wearing fleets begins when a client walks to the door. Consumer explains what they want to do – if this is competing in a marathon, a fun in their community, or just walking with friends in their neighborhood – and then a store service representative (what they call ” Outfitters “) receives 3D measurements of the client’s feet and watches them walk using the dynamic technology of the pressure map. Outfitters expertise, together with this data -driven knowledge, allow customers to find their shoes most appropriate.

At the end of 2021, the Fleet Fleet won Jackrabit-a competitor with 55 brick and mortar shops in 15 countries. This more than doubled the number of stores owned by the company. Fleet’s feet also won Jackrabb’s Business Business in Purchase.

The distribution center is essential for the flow of foot fleet products in their 80-plus company stores. Most of the goods intended for stores owned by the company flow through their distribution center in Durham, North Carolina. Warehouse also supports their e -commerce business. DC has 36 employees and operates seven days a week. Incoming shipments include parcels, less than truck and truck load. Output deliveries – Shipments to stores – are parcels.

Anthony Pendola, a high distribution manager at the Fle Fleet, said that buying Jackrabb “made us take a difficult look at our supply chain system and processes.” After this purchase, the company admitted that they faced challenges by keeping stores in stock. “At the Distribution Center, we tried to add staff and extend our work day to meet those challenges. But those things proved to be superficial adjustments. We realized that we need a solution that would help us to raise our turnover, but that would also be scaled as we continued to add more and more stores. AMR looked like the right solution ”

Fleet feet intend to have 400 stores in the next five or more years. The company opened 10 stores in 2024 and expects to exceed that number in 2025. .

Implementation of Locus robotics

The company went directly with autonomous mobile robots from Locus Robotics in October 2023. The company had not had any automation in its distribution operations before that.

Unfortunately, the implementation of warehouse robotics was part of a much larger project. Because of the growth, it was clear that they did not have enough storage space. They consolidated three warehouses – one of which they received the purchase – in Durham DC. The construction and opening of that distribution center lasted a year and a half. They moved to the distribution center in August 2023 and went directly with warehouse robots in October.

In the meantime, growth also served as an impulse for the company to replace its essential business system. They moved from QuickBooks to Netsuite. The warehouse management system they had used was not compatible with Netsuite. This led to the need to implement a new WMS that was. They selected a solution from the Körber supply chain software; Solving the skirt of Körber.

Körber, besides being a WMS supplier, is a partner with local. Körber is a leading integrator of the system of autonomous mobile robots. Having Körber implement both WMS and AMRS, the fleet’s legs believed that they could include AMR in their operation faster than expected.

There were challenges

There was skepticism that AMR was the right solution. Mr. Pendola acknowledged that he was one of the skeptics. “I will sit through the demo and think, how will these bots handle to handle great messages we routinely send our stores? A order can have 100 pairs of shoes, 300 pairs of socks, and then 150 Other articles this bot with a container on it, how will it accommodate all this?

But the location was finally proven to be very flexible; Can handle both large shop orders and one item choices for an e -commerce order. “I learned the importance of having an open mind.” All elections are now made of only five ordering orders working with 22 bots.

The fact that numerous systems were being implemented at about the same time meant that the company did not have enough time to prepare for WMS and AMR implementations.
“We took a gang help approach,” admitted Mr. Pendola eagerly. “There were many unknowns that we were just unprepared.”

An example, the warehouse uses a custom -made box that, in general, holds 12 pairs of shoes. The box sits cute on the robot platform when it is raised on its side. Shoes are taken in that box. When the box is stuffed, it goes to a package station for transportation. Because the shoes are filled in the shipping box, no repacting is needed. One of the problems they entered was that the boxes were flames on them. Sometimes, when the robots crossed each other in a row, the flames from each box would cling to each other, and the boxes would fall on the floor. Then the associates will have to repake the boxes, but they would not know which pairs of shoes went to which box. This would bring the operation to stop.

And then someone had the “excellent idea,” explained Mr. Pendola, to get a bungee cord and provide the flap by wrapping it around the robot. “We still use those yellow Bungee ropes today.” BUNGEE COORS $ 5 fixed the problem.

The other challenge is that to effectively fill custom -made boxes, weights and exact dimensions for their products were needed. If an order contained some triple EEE of 14, 12 pairs of shoes would not be put in the box. If there were a number of small -sized women’s shoes, more than 12 will fit. When the warehouse developed by hand, that was not important. But for the new process, it was critical.

The Fleet Fleet has over 200 brands and over 10,000 shares holding units. For a huge wave of work associated with an order, there may be 500 items, both shoes and clothing, which had to be put into Tote. At the end of the wave, instead of having 500 items, due to poor dimensioning, there may be only 200. “What about the other 300?” Mr. Pendola shouted. “Where will they go? This created a really big problem. “This problem was solved by taking the exact dimensions from their suppliers and entering that information into their business system. But getting this information took time.

Fleet’s feet received considerable benefits

Fleet’s feet received some benefits from implementation:

• Increased intake efficiency – The choice increased from 85 units per hour to 180 units per hour. Some associates are on average over 250 units per hour.
• Improved inventory accuracy in the warehouse – Due to the increased efficiency of the choice, workers were liberated for new tasks. The election staff fell from nearly 20 to 9. The fleet’s feet created a team of inventory coordinator that focuses only on the accuracy of the inventory. DC inventory accuracy now exceeds 99.5%. Inventory best accuracy also improves procurement.
• Improved workshop on board – Previously, it would take 8 to 10 hours for the new employees to become calm with the use of the scanner device to get instructions for getting. Now, workers can be trained in 15-20 minutes.
• Protecting the future of warehouses – AMRs are a scaled technology. If the turnover is to grow, it is easy to add new bots. Their Robot Contract-like a Körber service supports this by contract.
• Improved ergonomi – Workers do not have to walk so much based on the logic of optimism and the fact that bots make travel to transport stations than to collectors. Making work is now less strong. No longer needs a second change. Because of this, most collectors prefer to work with bots.
• Support to non -nata speakers – Employees have an ID. When a worker approaches a bot, the bot relates to ID. The world attracts the worker’s profile and knows their favorite language. Then, the work instructions appear in that language.

But the biggest benefit from the project was improved customer service! The best customer service in the classroom is what will promote growth for fleet’s feet. Prior to implementation, the warehouse sent a shipment to each company owned by the company per week. Now, they are recharging stores more often. The retail seller’s order cycle – the period from when an order would enter the queue until it was sent – it sat down from three and a half days a half day. Thus, stores are now more likely to be in stock when a client walks through the door.

Mr. Pendola summarized him by saying, “True success does not come from lowering costs or squeezing boundaries. It comes from growth, sustainable intentional growth. Thus we build long -term value.”