Day: 4 September 2025

The acquisition of Solid by Consafe Logistics provides the WMS specialist with an opportunity to extend reach beyond its core Astro offering. We spoke to CPO, Patrik Olsson.

Swedish-founded vendor Consafe Logistics has been building a strong reputation in the field of Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Warehouse Execution Systems (WES) and Warehouse Control Systems (WCS) for over 40 years. The core Astro WMS product boasts over 250 customers, primarily in the Tier 1 category; the recent acquisition of Dutch-based Solid WMS, announced in May 2025, gives Consafe the opportunity to serve a wider range of warehouses and DCs, including Tier 3 level.

Chief Product Officer Patrik Olsson (pictured, below) has been with Consafe for eight years and is delighted with the company’s progress. “We are doing well, we have made steady year-on-year growth of broadly 12-15% for several years,” he reports. “We are profitable, with good EBITDA margins, which means we can keep investing in product development which is obviously important to me in my role. It’s important for our customers that we keep enhancing the product, modernising, updating, deploying new technology.”

What has driven the growth? “We need to be humble, because the wider market has obviously contributed,” he reflects. “The shift from bricks and mortar to ecommerce has been very important for many of our customers. They also have labour scarcity and costs to consider. Our customers are seeking lower operational expenses in their warehouses. Their biggest expense is their people, and also their most important resource, but it is also the most expensive. This challenge, plus the lack of skilled labour, is what drives investment in automation and in warehouse management systems. Sophisticated software support has become vital.”

Supporting Automation

Clearly it’s not just about the wider market, though. What does Consafe Logistics do that makes it such a special option for customers and to help it achieve such regular growth?

“We bring very strong capabilities around supporting companies in their wish to automate,” he says. “Our software is fully agnostic, we can integrate our WMS/WES/WCS with any automation equipment from any vendor. That brings you as the customer flexibility, scalability and preparedness for the future.”

Future readiness is vital. “You know what you want to do today, but not necessarily tomorrow,” he cautions. “We can provide different levels of integration to fit with any customer requirement. We support the simplest ‘Black Box’ to the most complex, so we have plenty of capability both product-wise and in terms of competences when it comes to controlling automation.”

Effective orchestration between manual and automated processes is another vital, but often overlooked, advantage. “It’s really important that your manual processes work in harmony with the automation. You can’t allow a scenario where you might be five hours ahead in production automation without even starting manual processes for that same order. It must all be orchestrated in the right way, resource-wise and execution-wise.”

Gaining a reputation as a European specialist is also a big plus for Consafe Logistics. “We focus on customers headquartered in our home market, which largely comprises the Nordics, Benelux, Poland, and UK. But of course, we’ll follow those customers if they go elsewhere, so that means we have installations on every continent. We can install and run and support our software worldwide.”

As CPO, Patrik Olsson retains laser focus on consistent product improvement. “A lot of focus over the past couple of years has been in bringing different AI capabilities to the product, in areas such as placement of stock in optimal locations, harvesting and predicting of data, optimising pick routes, workforce planning, and making sure our clients are fully updated.”

Warehouse execution capability is another strength. “New automation technologies emerge all the time, so we have a continuous need to enhance our integration capabilities with automation,” he explains.

Versatility and Durability

Versatility has become another USP and the acquisition of Solid has given Consafe Logistics the capability to serve any type or size of warehouse on the automation journey. “The core Astro WMS is focused on Tier 1 and upper Tier 2, which we broadly classify at over €400 million turnover. Customers include retail, manufacturing, wholesale, 3PLs, food and beverage and we have some of the largest companies in the world deploying our technology, such as Carlsberg, Heineken and a global-leading Swedish furniture company. Solid gives us that Tier 3 capability, which we class at roughly €250 milllion annual turnover, a site with perhaps a maximum of 30 order pickers.”

It is a testament to Consafe’s promises to its clients that so many customers stay the course for 10, 20 years and beyond. “We’re not just a software company,” he states. “Yes, product is important, but the expertise and how to implement are also vital. We are a forward-looking partner, we strategize together with you.”

And how might the first conversations with a customer go – what does he advise them?

“I tell them that they need to look 5-10 years ahead. Too often I see customers starting off simply by wanting the coolest technology – and that’s a mistake. You need to look at the specific needs of the business and about how to serve customers better. Only then look for the right technology to fulfil those needs.”

And how does the see the state of the market today?

“The market has definitely slowed in the last couple of years, with the various crises, uncertainty, regionalisation, tariffs in US, sluggish economies. But of course, this is true for everybody, not just us. We are still encouraged by our strong growth.”

“We are seeing plenty of investment. After all, companies still need to invest to save money in the long run, maybe not in full automation, but maybe in modernising what they have with flexible automation solutions. I think picking technology is really advancing, so I predict that as a growth area.”