White paper explores future fulfilment challenges

A new white paper from a leading independent software developer and integrator of advanced warehouse automation, lays bare the challenges ahead for logistics and fulfilment, and sets out pathways for businesses to capitalise on advanced warehouse automation, intelligent software and AI driven robotics.

“The warehouse is undergoing a huge transformation, from repository to fulfilment powerhouse, but there are risks to growth that need to be addressed. Robotics, AI and digitalisation hold the key to boosting capacity,” explains Craig Whitehouse, Managing Director at Invar Group – authors of the report.

“Immediacy is now a commercial imperative. Sales can be won or lost on availability, speed of despatch and proximity to the customer. Short lead-times and late cut-offs play a decisive role in winning and retaining customers ­– and margins, along with brand reputation, can be enhanced or diminished by the speed and efficiency with which returns are processed and refunds managed.”

Supporting and enabling the future growth of the businesses has become a major challenge for those responsible for fulfilment. Mitigating cost may be a perennial issue for most businesses, but significant structural change within the labour market, following Brexit and the pandemic, together with a constricted warehouse property market – where availability is low and rents high – has placed a great number of companies under intense pressure. How can fulfilment gear-up effectively for growth when labour and space are hard to come by and costs for both are rising sharply?

The white paper identifies and addresses key influences on the sector: Rising costs, labour availability, supply anxiety and the great space shortage, the wider impact of ecommerce, the challenge to support growth, the rise of the robot, advances in simulation, and digital transformation of the warehouse.

Invar Group has supplied systems to many of the world’s leading brands, such as: SuperDry, Games Workshop, Bentley, Coca Cola, and Nike.