What Your Automation Systems Integrator Should Be Doing Before Installation Begins
Key Takeaways
- Pre-installation is a critical period for logistics services partners, because that’s when key testing and troubleshooting take place. Putting in as much proactive work as possible in this period prevents problems arising during installation.
- The best automation systems are designed with real, operational data in mind, not built around a standard, off-the-shelf equipment configuration.
- Plans must take into account not just averages, but physical extremes and other outliers. A small mistake during installation can lead to a larger issue that will take more effort and time to fix down the line.
- The difference between an automation installer and an automation systems integrator is that the latter will conduct a deep dive data analysis and run necessary simulations and emulations before installation even begins.
In an automated warehouse environment, one mistake can have outsized consequences, such as a single mislabeled case delaying an entire sorting run. A sorting system optimized for average-sized cartons can be confused by product variability, missing its rate the first time a 90-pound case and a 2-pound case simultaneously ride the same conveyor. The best opportunity to prevent failures like these occurs long before the automated process is up and running. Comprehensive warehouse automation must include thorough design and testing weeks before any equipment is installed, when an automation systems integrator conducts reviews, simulations, and control-software tests that will ultimately determine whether a system can maintain its throughput on day one or spend the first quarter of operations in troubleshooting mode.
At TGW Logistics, our team understands the difference the pre-installation phase can have on the success of the entire operation. We know that it’s easier to solve all issues up front than after equipment installation, which can lead to a longer delay. Pre-installation is the point where planned ROI is either protected or lost.
What "Before Installation" Actually Means
“Before installation” may sound like a vague term, so let us be more specific in the tasks that can be accomplished in that period. The first stretch of time and effort after a contract has been signed and before equipment installation begins is a design and validation phase, during which the real logistics engineering happens and is optimized and calibrated for real-world operations. The most effective automation systems integrators will use that time to finalize a system design that reflects and aligns with how your facility actually runs—validating order profiles, SKU velocity, SKU analysis, peak patterns, and building layout—before moving into final equipment purchasing and shipping to site. If you stay strictly aligned with the plan that’s discussed in the sales and contract phase without doing any validation and final calibration, misalignment issues between the plan and the customer’s expectations will surface during realization. Course-correcting then is more onerous and time-consuming than it is to tweak the design early on.
Designing for Real Retail Logistics Operations, Not the Average
It’s helpful to know your averages for throughput and carton size, but relying on those numbers during the design phase is a common mistake that will reverberate throughout the process. That’s because averages tend to hide the cases that can break a system, particularly in retail logistics. An automated system designed for a typical tote or a standard order will stall and struggle on the exceptions. Every warehouse leader knows that, in practice, exceptions are where throughput rates live.
Successful pre-installation design considers the full range of items that move through the system, including exceptions such as the largest and smallest cartons; the heaviest and lightest items; a pallet shrink-wrapped in an unusual way; a label placed where a scanner cannot read it on an incline; and so on. An installer who presents a standard system without taking the full picture into account doesn’t account for these physical nuances. A systems integrator in warehouse automation designs for outlier cases, validates against the promised throughput rate, and then accounts for those outside factors that pull performance figures away from the ideal case.
A deep dive into the data analysis of your real order and inventory history before installation is critical to designing a system optimized for operational reality. The operational reports published annually by the Material Handling Institute (MHI) can serve as a useful benchmark for pressure-testing a proposed equipment design under real warehouse conditions. An important note for stakeholders who might be cautious about review and simulation periods is that proactive design before installation is far cheaper than instituting reactive fixes after the system goes live.
Proactive Testing: From Virtual Verification to Physical Handoff
To be effective and to catch problems while they are still low-risk and relatively easy to fix, pre-installation testing follows a basic roadmap.
First, your warehouse logistics systems integration partner runs a virtual model of your system against real, hard data that’s been collected. This test seeks to confirm whether the system design can maintain its desired rate at peak demand and to identify the bottlenecks and buffer limits that would otherwise cause significant disruptions.
Next, your integrator tests the actual warehouse control system (WCS) software against virtual emulators of the proposed equipment. That way, the team can debug the system's control logic before it’s ever connected to the physical hardware.
The simulation and emulation process is multifaceted and requires collaboration among several groups. The system integration team, the install group, the controls group, and the software team should all be involved, working together to coordinate seamless handoffs and share information. Organizations including the Warehouse Education and Research Council (WERC) publish best-practice frameworks for warehouse execution because these handoffs are critical points where poorly run projects break down.
How this process is coordinated is just as important as how comprehensive it is, so when you evaluate a potential automation systems integrator, be sure to ask to review their proposed testing sequence and ask who will own each stage.
A Pre-Installation Checklist for Evaluating a Logistics Systems Integrator
Settling on the right partner can make or break a logistics services project, so we’ve put together a checklist to help you make your choice. These questions will separate an integrator who will design for your operation based on your data from one that will hand you a template and expect your operation to make do.
- Will you finalize the system design based on our actual order and inventory data before purchasing and shipping equipment?
- What throughput rate will you commit to, and under what peak and surge assumptions?
- How do you design for our physical extremes, from the heaviest cases to the lightest, and for the “difficult” labels and pallets?
- Will you run a simulation on our data before installation, and can we review the results?
- Do you emulate the programmable logic controller and control software against virtual emulators before anything is deployed on the floor?
- Which groups own validation of each phase, and where are the handoffs between design, install, controls, and software?
Protecting ROI Before Install
By the time installation is initiated, most of the work that determines whether a system operates smoothly at scale has already been completed. An automation systems integrator will construct a design based on your real data; include worst-case planning for your physical extremes; conduct simulations and emulations to surface problems early; and define which groups handle each handoff. Any capable integrator should be able to easily meet this set of standards pre-installation, instilling confidence in stakeholders that the business case for automation is strong. Pre-installation design and testing are what turn a project's ROI into a reliable one.
TGW Logistics believes that it’s possible to know that a system will perform as desired before it’s even installed. That’s because we take the steps to prove it before any equipment hits the floor. If you’re evaluating logistics service partners or planning a project, we’d love to talk to you about what and how we validate during the pre-installation stage.