“We need exactly this automated storage system. Nothing else is an option for us.”
I hear this statement time and again. And honestly, it may be true.
But it may not be.
Some time ago, I met with a customer who knew exactly which solution they wanted.
Instead of discussing the technology, I started asking questions about the process.
What do you actually store? How large are the parts? Which orders account for the greatest share? Where do the biggest bottlenecks occur today?
With every answer, it became clearer that technology was not the real issue. The process was.
In the end, we found that a different solution could handle around 80% of the orders far more effectively than the originally preferred idea.
That project confirmed something I have seen repeatedly: the best solution rarely comes from the first idea. It emerges when we understand the process first.