Warehouse automation and robotics

OrderFlow is the ideal WMS platform for high volume operations that want to integrate warehouse automation or robotics into broader manual processes. OrderFlow is a highly configurable enterprise WMS platform that supports complex workflows that are tailored to specific customer requirements. We understand warehouse processes and understand that warehouse automation has to be implemented within a wider context of manual operations if it is to be implemented successfully.

Robotics

OrderFlow was used by ProFS to introduce autonomous warehouse robots to their existing warehouse processes in a new purpose built facility. OrderFlow manages the overall warehouse environment and allows ProFS to support their 3PL clients who require traditional warehouse fulfilment to be merged with robotic storage and picking wherever it’s appropriate. OrderFlow drives a receipt and putaway process that will direct incoming stock to either the traditional warehouse racking or present it to the robot receipt process for automated putaway.

OrderFlow then presents pick requests to the robot infrastructure and allows users to receive the required items presented to them by the robot pick process and complete the despatch process. OrderFlow’s expertise and the configurability of our platform is able to ensure that the robot driven processes integrate smoothly with the broader processes within which they sit.

Put To Light and Pick to Light Walls

OrderFlow can drive pick-to-light and put-to-light infrastructure that can direct users who are handling large quantities of individual small items, directing them to the right locations and making it quick and easy to confirm with a pick or put operation has been completed.

Like robots, pick and put walls are expensive and may only be applicable to some of the items and some of the orders processed by your warehouse. OrderFlow has the experience and the tools to ensure that the pick walls and put walls are used effectively and that the processes they support are tightly integrated with other warehouse operations.

Scales Integration for Deliveries, Works Orders and Despatches

OrderFlow supports integration with industrial scales, to capture the weight of incoming stock, to allow production teams to weigh out required quantities against a production works order or to validate the weight of outgoing customer orders before despatch.

Cost Justification and the 80/20 Rule

There is a trade-off in all warehouse automation between flexibility and cost, it’s relatively easy and cost effective to automate a process that only needs to cope with a narrow range of uniform items and a very standardised order profile. The more the broader the range of sizes, weights and physical characteristics that need to be be accommodated, the more expensive automation becomes, this applies to both the profile of stock items that need to be supported and the profile of outgoing orders.

The 80/20 Pareto principle often applies, warehouse automation that has to accommodate ALL your stock items and ALL your orders it will be a lot more expensive and complicated than a design which focusses on the more representative 80% of products and orders, while also supporting manual processes that will handle the 20% of outliers.

OrderFlow allows your delivery receipt processes to determine how each incoming SKU is handled, based on it’s physical characteristics, the expected demand for the SKU or any other consideration. This decision can be embedded within automatic routing logic or can be determined by the user who receiving the delivery. Similarly outgoing customer orders can be processed using different workflows that are optimised to suit different order profiles. Different orderlines within the same order can be picked in different workflows and then brought together before being presented to the pack and despatch process.

The configurable logic that allows OrderFlow to consider the attributes of an incoming delivery line or an outgoing customer orderline and then route it to an optimised workflow makes it the ideal platform for automating your key processes in a cost-efficient that allows you to focus on your core requirements while still ensuring that less typical products and orders are still handled efficiently within the same WMS environment.