Automation? Don’t Ask Whether – Ask How.

We focus specifically on the automation of intralogistics. That is, on how goods, materials or components move within a company: from receipt through the warehouse to release or the production line. And the projects are truly varied – from the deployment of one AMR all the way to a fully automated warehouse.

Naturally, we are still keeping this role. But we can see how our customers are looking more and more for projects with one partner, let’s call it the general supplier, who leads the project with us from its very start – from the question: “Should we automate?” through technology selection, implementation, servicing and future development. That’s why we decided to offer this option. The benefit for the customer is that we’re not dependent on any particular technologies. That gives us a free hand to design solutions that truly fit the customer.

Automation is understandably a major trend, and it is definitely one of the few ways to truly fundamentally change how an operation performs. At heart, it’s about making intensive use of available resources for a step change in growth. But it’s not necessarily a cure for every problem. Sometimes other things need to be resolved first: packaging variability or quality, a rethink of the basic process setup, data collection. Only then does it make sense to invest in new technologies. The customer might not want to hear this, but in the end they’ll appreciate it.

Most often where there is a labour shortage, volumes are rising and operations can no longer keep up, or where handling is physically demanding and the company struggles to retain people in those roles. But the reasons vary – that’s why we always ask about them first.

Ideally their vision – what they expect from the business in one year, in five. Pinpointing the challenges faced by their management. Maybe they want to grow and don’t want logistics to impede that; or they’re short of people; or they need to fundamentally increase their speed or precision. These are major investments, and without a clear goal, it’s hard to evaluate whether they make any sense at all and what’s the right path. Data plays a fundamental role too: material flows, volumes, described processes. Without these, we’re working blind. But they don’t need to have a technical brief. That part is our work.

It’s highly varied. Data tends to be scattered about; sometimes it hasn’t been systematically collected – but that can be solved. What’s more complicated sometimes is agreeing on project goals. There are often five people at our meetings, each with a slightly different viewpoint, requirements and priorities. That’s no exception; it’s how it works in practice. At this stage, we also function as a facilitator for internal discussion, and since we have dozens of major digitalisation projects under our belt, we can also help with building a long-term vision.

Yes, we are also able to deliver projects like that on a turnkey basis. But of course this demands serious infrastructure and experience. That’s why we join forces with other market leaders, namely Logio and LogTech. Logio is a leading Czech consulting firm that specialises in logistics and the supply chain, while LogTech has extensive experience with implementing automated operations and strong engineering. Our sets of know-how naturally complement each other – for the customer this means that the analysts, consultants, systems management specialists and engineers are working together from the start of the project. All with practical experience gained from past implementations. This enables us to catch lots of details, simplify the entire project and speed up its preparation.

Call us. Seriously – the best first step is an open discussion where we talk through whether automation makes sense for you, and if so, how. You don’t need to have already prepared a brief; it’s enough to know what bothers you and where you want to arrive.