Globally consumers are now choosing and purchasing things at the click of a button on a mere whim. This quick purchase process influences the mindset of the customer and conditions it to expect fast delivery. Retailers and logistics providers are now looking for avenues to fulfill customer expectations quickly to win the customer.
Improving order fulfillment is now one of the most important aspects of any sale from the perspective of its influence on the customer experience. Customers today want 1-day deliveries and consider ‘fast delivery’ to mean same-day delivery. Almost 49% of shoppers say that same-day delivery makes them more likely to shop online. 88% of consumers are willing to pay more for same-day deliveries and 25% of shoppers would abandon a cart online if same-day shipping wasn’t available.
The push for fast/ same-day deliveries has fundamentally changed prevailing logistics paradigms. This has led to the rise of third-party logistics providers and micro-fulfillment centers, neighborhood fulfillment centers, and even dark stores. As order fulfillment becomes increasingly on-demand, the MFCs need to rethink how to optimize operations and make them more efficient, time-efficient, and cost-effective.
The MFC challenge
Since micro-fulfillment centers are smaller, purpose-built facilities that are close to the customer locations, automation needs become more nuanced. Automation solutions designed for larger warehouses do not work for last-mile delivery MFCs and cannot address the throughput challenge that emerges from the space design and limited area of operation.
Solutions such as Carte+ are designed by industry experts with decades of robotics experience in Silicon Valley along with partners and investors who are robotics, deep-tech, and supply chain experts.
Carte+ is unlike any other order fulfillment solution as it:
Optimizes floorspace utilization
MFCs, or Micro-Fulfillment Centers, are facilities that generally occupy less than 50,000 square feet of floor space. In fact, some MFC designs are as small as 2,000 square feet. The primary purpose of MFCs is to enable near-instant delivery while reducing costs. This can be achieved through automation, particularly with picking and packaging.
The Carte+ automation solution is designed to account for the limited real estate available to MFCs. Its compact size makes it ideal for fulfillment centers located in urban areas with limited floor space.
Most MFCs use vertical space for storing products, with some going up to a ceiling height of over 8 feet for this reason. A solution like Carte+ solves this challenge by providing horizontal and vertical movement in three dimensions.
This allows MFCs to navigate the limited floor space efficiently, while also accelerating the picking and packing process.
Material Movement agility
In Micro-Fulfillment Centers (MFCs), speed is crucial. Therefore, the automation solution must not only be compact but also ensure it enhances material movement agility. The automation solution for such spaces must have the capability to place, pick, and pack products from large inventories to accelerate order fulfillment.
Carte+ is an automation solution that helps MFCs to handle material movement with the same agility as data. It eliminates the need for any manual intervention required to locate, pick, and pack products. Carte+ can navigate small spaces accurately, locate products, and pick and pack them precisely. This has a direct impact on service accuracy and customer satisfaction.
Increase throughput
The demand for one-day delivery has led to the need for automation solutions that can handle large order volumes while maintaining high throughput. However, implementing automation can be challenging due to factors like standard racking and expensive operator stations.
Carte+ is an innovative solution that addresses this challenge, offering MFCs a scalable automation system that streamlines the picking and packing of large order volumes. With Carte+, MFCs can achieve a throughput of over 450 totes per hour and see a return on investment within two years or less.
Carte+ is designed to meet the packaging and order fulfillment needs of industries operating in grocery and convenience, health and beauty, pharma, 3PLs, etc. It helps businesses get closer to the customer and increase customer satisfaction by improving packing throughput and accelerating order fulfillment.
Carte+ is a tool that helps Micro Fulfillment Centers (MFCs) to optimize their supply chain operations. It achieves this by automating the reverse logistics process and ensuring that it doesn’t negatively impact the operational throughput. One of the key features of Carte+ is its ability to offer kitting, which can significantly improve the pace of order fulfillment while maintaining order accuracy. With kitting, MFCs can easily bundle items together, making it easier for customers to receive all their products in one order.
Reduce time-to-deployment
The demand for faster service delivery by customers is increasing, thereby creating opportunities to open more MFCs. These storage spaces should be ready to operate quickly. However, if the automation solution takes a long time to deploy, it can impact the bottom line and increase costs.
Carte+ is a solution that can be installed in less than six weeks and requires no floor space preparation or heavy material handling equipment. This makes it ideal for these spaces as it significantly reduces installation time.
To sum it up
If you are looking for a comprehensive, robust, cutting-edge solution to automate your order-fulfillment process then your search ends with Carte+. Fast, agile, reliable, and scalable, Carte+ has been specifically designed to increase the operational velocity of MFCs and make order fulfillment operations faster and more cost-effective.