Footwear Fulfillment & Warehouse Automation

The efficiency of your footwear fulfillment operations can be the difference between thriving and merely surviving in today’s competitive logistics environment. Footwear fulfillment presents unique challenges, from managing an extensive range of SKUs to handling seasonal demand fluctuations and high return rates. This article covers practical strategies for improving footwear fulfillment through warehouse automation, offering solutions that streamline operations and enhance efficiency.

Footwear fulfillment is more than just moving products from storage to shipping; it’s about managing complexity at scale. The footwear industry presents several unique challenges that traditional warehouse systems often struggle to handle:

1. Diverse Product Range: Footwear comes in numerous styles, sizes, and colors, creating many SKUs. Managing such a diverse inventory requires a system that can efficiently store and retrieve products without errors.
2. Demand Variability: Agility is key for thriving in today’s dynamic market. Your footwear system must be able to seamlessly adapt to change. This means being flexible enough to fulfill multiple channels and order profiles, keeping up with the constantly changing demands of customers throughout the day and week.
3. Complex Storage Requirements: Footwear items vary in size and packaging, from compact shoe boxes to larger boot containers. A one-size-fits-all approach to storage simply won’t work; you need a system that can dynamically adapt to the diverse storage needs of your products.
4. High Return Rates: Returns are a common occurrence in footwear, where customers frequently order multiple sizes to try on at home. Efficiently processing these returns and quickly reintegrating products into inventory is essential for maintaining stock levels and satisfying customer demand.

Warehouse automation plays a critical role in addressing the challenges of footwear fulfillment by optimizing operations, reducing manual labor, and minimizing errors. From managing inventory to speeding up the order-picking process, automation streamlines workflows and ensures that footwear warehouses can keep pace with the growing demands of e-commerce and retail sectors.

Several types of warehouse automation solutions are available to meet the specific needs of footwear fulfillment:

• Floor Robots: Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGVs) transport goods along fixed paths using navigation aids like magnet strips or wires, while Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) navigate freely using sensors and cameras. Both AGVs and AMRs offer quick implementation and boost throughput and accuracy, but they provide lower throughput and storage density compared to Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS). AGVs are limited to fixed paths, while AMRs offer greater flexibility, adapting to dynamic warehouse environments.
• Traditional ASRS: Traditional Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), consisting of mini-load and shuttle systems, have been used in warehouses for decades. Mini-load systems use large cranes to store and retrieve goods, transporting them via conveyors to picking stations. Shuttle systems employ shuttles that move horizontally within racks, transferring goods to vertical lifts and then to conveyors for delivery to picking stations. While these systems offer high throughput and storage density, they require simultaneous expansion of both storage and throughput equipment, which can lead to overinvestment. Their heavy mechanization also limits flexibility and makes expansion time-consuming.
• Robotic Goods-to-Person: Robotic goods-to-person systems include cube storage and mobile ASRS. In cube storage, bins are stacked in a cube-shaped structure, with robots on top handling bin sorting, retrieval, and delivery to picking stations. Mobile ASRS uses autonomous robots to move between storage racks and picking stations for goods retrieval. These robotic systems offer exceptional flexibility, allowing quick throughput increases by adding robots or expanding storage with minimal disruption. Though relatively new, robotic automation is quickly becoming the preferred choice for the agility required in an unpredictable future.
• Module-Based System: Vertical Lift Modules (VLMs) and Carousel Systems both operate within enclosed modules, using automated lifts or rotating shelves to transport goods to integrated picking stations. While these systems offer faster implementation and improved throughput compared to manual operations, they fall short of shuttle systems and mobile ASRS in throughput. Despite providing denser storage, their fixed sizes can limit warehouse vertical space and lead to premature equipment upgrades if capacity needs increase.

When introducing warehouse automation in a footwear fulfillment environment, there are several strategic factors to consider:

• Scalability: Demand fluctuations, especially during peak seasons, call for scalable automation solutions. Robotic systems address this need by offering the flexibility to rent additional robots during peak times. Decoupling throughput from storage allows for growth in one area without expanding the other, minimizing capital expenditures.
• Inventory Management: To get the best out of your inventory data, start by ensuring all systems are aligned. It’s important to have a centralized data repository or data warehouse that aggregates information from your warehouse management system (WMS), enterprise resource planning (ERP), learning management system (LMS), order management system (OMS), and other sources. This allows for real-time data access and ensures consistency across platforms. Utilizing data analytics platforms like Tableau, Power BI, or custom BI solutions can provide a unified view of key performance indicators, making it easier to manage and optimize inventory.
• Cost Efficiency: Although automation systems often require a significant upfront investment, it’s crucial to evaluate the long-term ROI by considering reduced labor costs, improved picking accuracy, and faster order fulfillment. Additionally, automation can enhance overall supply chain efficiency and reduce costs beyond the warehouse. This includes optimizing truck routes through reverse stop sequencing and shelf-ready palletizing, which ensures items are stacked in a way that allows for quick and organized restocking in stores.
• Worker Integration: Automation should complement human workers. Ergonomic and user-friendly interfaces reduce worker fatigue and improve productivity, ensuring a seamless transition to an automated environment.

The Exotec^® Skypod^® system offers the flexibility and efficiency needed to meet the unique challenges of footwear fulfillment. It can retrieve any order item within two minutes, scale throughput and storage independently, and store both cases and individual items in bins. This combination of performance and flexibility makes it ideal for meeting the modern demands of footwear fulfillment.

Take the Skypod system virtual tour to learn more about how Exotec can revolutionize your footwear fulfillment processes.