The Managing Director of BITO Storage Systems, Edward Hutchnson has been looking into automated solutions for the logistics sector. BITO works on an international scale in order to deliver storage and order picking systems. Using automation in logistics is gradually getting closer to a reality, with companies working with larger volumes of products as well as a the ever increasing pressure for a faster service. There is also the increase in staff costs that is incurred in order to deliver a faster service with the larger volume of products and this means that looking to automation could be the way forward.

The logistics sector has constantly used manual labour, but at the moment there has been a reduction in the level of unemployment, and plans to further increase the minimum wage and a reduction in the labour pool cause by post-Brexit EU could lead to less people available to carry out the type of work required by logistics companies, with other options such as automation being looked at to overcome this challenge.

Automation is also becoming a more cost effective and appealing alternative to manual labour is the lack of warehousing space available.With the demand for warehousing space highest near to urban areas, where most of the population live and look for work, the price of warehouses is increasing.  However the enhanced control and performance of automation systems now offer the logistics industry a solution which is more flexible for a range of different purposes, whether that is carrying out omni channel retail demands to working in line-side manufacturing.

A combination of the increased cost and possible future reduction of staff for the sector, the appeal of automated solutions is increasing, with it being able to function across the goods to picker operations while also delivering on intralogistics systems,automated systems are being introduced more and more into the market.