AutoStore™ holds a easy but highly effective imaginative and prescient: to retailer and transfer issues for everybody, all over the place.
Gross sales Director UK&I at AutoStore System Ltd
We try this by growing robotics and superior software program targeted on clever fulfilment. The step-change advantages for our prospects embody extra pace, accuracy, reliability and effectivity in addition to extra engaging, optimised workplaces.
It’s a mix that has helped us flourish into a worldwide expertise firm. AutoStore at present has 1750+ techniques put in in practically 60 international locations, and plenty of of our prospects are world family names, together with Puma, Gucci, Siemens, DHL, HelloFresh and Asda.
Our sturdy and various companion community performs an essential position in our promise to prospects. We work via 23 world companions, every with distinctive attributes, of which eight are lively within the UK. By listening fastidiously to our neighborhood’s advanced wants, we assist manufacturers exceed buyer expectations.
With AutoStore™, manufacturers acquire pace, effectivity, and improved workplaces.
And way more flooring area.
Russell Holmes, Gross sales Director UK&I at AutoStore System Ltd spoke to Warehouse & Logistics Information.
What are your best-known merchandise/options/providers?
AutoStore utilises robotic expertise to automate & optimise warehouse operations. Constructed round a dense grid construction, subtle software program navigates a fleet of robots to repeatedly full fulfilment requests with techniques driving efficiency in extra of 40,000 order strains per hour.
Current developments embody additional deployment in demanding temperature-controlled functions, together with our step-change ‘Frozen-Solely’ grid, in addition to new product releases similar to AutoCase, which automates the loading and unloading of full circumstances, and FlexBins, which improve storage density functionality and SKU selection.
We’ve additionally enhanced CarouselAI, our automated robotic choosing station, by enhancing bin placement to allow quicker retrievals and help lighter merchandise dealing with.
How do you assume your trade sector is performing for the time being?
Pushed by the persevering with success of e-commerce, the UK’s warehouse and logistics sector is giant and rising, but it surely should additionally adapt to the dual challenges of labour shortages and rising prices. International volatility and unpredictability imply that warehouse leaders should have the power to react shortly to changeable market situations.
Automation adoption is rising, with elevated deployment of information analytics and concentrate on versatile provide chains. We’re additionally seeing extra exploration of re-shoring choices within the manufacturing sector, with consequent implications for the warehousing component.
Whereas automation adoption is wholesome, world uncertainties have led logistics leaders to be extra risk-averse, with decision-making prolonged over longer-than-usual durations.
What number of markets are you in and what’s your largest market?
Globally, we have now applied over 1750 websites deployed in 60 international locations. The flexibility and scalability of our options makes them an ideal match for a lot of verticals together with retail e-commerce, vogue, grocery (together with temperature-controlled and frozen-only), healthcare, industrials, and 3PLs.
We view the UK as a excessive progress space, with over 60 websites already deployed and plenty of extra approaching stream.
What are your most up-to-date product improvements?
Our new merchandise for 2026 embody AutoCase, which automates the motion of full circumstances out and in of storage and allows particular item-picking till empty. By combining case dealing with and piece-picking in a single stream, throughput is elevated and handbook dealing with is lowered, enhancing price and security.
FlexBins allow our three completely different bin sizes to be built-in right into a single grid, boosting storage density and SKU selection. The profit for purchasers is the flexibility to deal with a wider vary of merchandise with out sacrificing pace or reliability.
Different improvements embody VersaPort, our modular, configurable warehouse workstation, and CarouselAI, our fully-automated robotic piece-picking answer.
What’s your technique for progress and success in 2026?
We’ll proceed to work with our companions to ship excellent clever fulfilment choices throughout a broad vary of verticals. We imagine our new merchandise can solely improve the present confirmed buyer advantages of the AutoStore system and we’re assured that our new releases will assist them remedy the challenges they inform us they face – labour uncertainty, stress on warehouse area, and delivering constant excellence to match their buyer expectations.
Are you able to inform us about any areas, similar to in AI, the place you’re at present making technical advances?
We’re excited concerning the alternatives AI brings to our prospects. Our CarouseAI robotic choosing station allows warehouses to work smarter, not more durable – with out further labour prices. For the client, it means best-in-class SKU protection and totally autonomous choosing, with efficiency repeatedly optimised. It’s very straightforward to each arrange and function, too.
Are you able to foresee autonomous cell robots and goods-to-person techniques changing into extra mainstream to enhance effectivity and cut back handbook labour?
Actually – the monetary advantages of efficient, acceptable automation are clear. By combining the pliability of our options with our various companion community we’re seeing persevering with wider adoption.
By rising labour effectivity, optimising warehouse area, decreasing error charges, and decreasing stock holding prices, mixed with 24-hour operation, AutoStore has in some circumstances lowered working prices by 40%, with a pay again interval of below two years.
What units your organization other than others?
AutoStore’s secret weapon is our extraordinarily sturdy, dynamic and diversified companion community.
Every companion is chosen for the distinctive attributes they create, giving us the flexibility to align with finish consumer necessities way more intently on a buyer to buyer and project-by-project foundation.
How future-proof and versatile are your options?
In a phrase, extraordinarily.
The primary AutoStore was deployed over 20 years in the past and that first system remains to be working at above 99.7% uptime and availability right now. Lengthy-term, confirmed robustness at this reliable stage is crucial when coming into into enterprise transformation initiatives.
One other essential consider future-proof, versatile expertise is scalability. AutoStore options are extremely scalable – 75% of options are expanded inside 18 months of going reside, whereas some have additionally been fully re-deployed, having the pliability to change SKU profiles matching tendencies and seasonality.
Our flexibility extends a lot additional than the core expertise itself. AutoStore additionally presents an ASaaS (AutoStore as a Service) mannequin, permitting finish customers to deploy capital in different areas of their enterprise, whereas nonetheless having fun with the advantages of an AutoStore on a lease foundation, thus decreasing danger in unsure instances.
How would you sum up your organization in three phrases?
Lean. Clear. Daring.
AUTOSTORE
07745 526 541
russell.Holmes@AutoStoreSystem.com
