Distribution Case Study: 600 Employees Reskilled to Support Warehouse Automation

Leading operations and supply chain leaders view the adoption of automation technology, such as robotic material handling, as essential to their organization’s future success. Even factoring in maintenance costs, depreciation, and time to profitability, the cost of a new solution makes sense when a company forecasts a significant rise in productivity. But without the proper support for employees using the tools, these types of investments often fall short of expectations or even fail.

This case study explores how one aftermarket automotive parts manufacturer successfully reskilled 600 warehouse employees in just a few months. The transformation enabled rapid adoption of automation while minimizing disruption, reducing travel waste, and improving order fulfillment efficiency.

Why Workforce Reskilling Is Critical to Warehouse Automation Success

Many businesses are now realizing that the road to success usually involves retraining their existing workforces. With the right tools, you can give your team the support they need to master new skills faster while reducing their time to proficiency. Reskilling or upskilling are a necessary means for companies to improve team capabilities while keeping pace with the rapid digitalization of the workplace.

Our customer is an aftermarket automotive parts manufacturer and distributor that has recently been undergoing a major transformation to improve how they fill customer orders.

This transformation comes at a time when they’re experiencing growing demand alongside a shrinking workforce as many tenured employees retire.

The Operational Challenge: Travel Waste and Manual Order Picking

In their distribution facilities, “travel waste” (the time it takes an employee to travel from one picking location to another) was the main inefficiency. One employee picked the entirety of an order. No matter where the product was located in the 750,000 square foot warehouse, employees would walk aisle by aisle to retrieve the item and add it to the order.

The first decision was to move away from manual order assignment with a single individual picking the entire order.

Instead, they adopted a zoned picking process driven by a new warehouse execution system (WES) platform. This enabled them to assign pickers to specific areas in the warehouse, cutting down on travel time while enabling the pickers to become very familiar with their specific zone.

In addition, they installed several vertical lift modules (VLMs) to further consolidate picking, using the space more effectively. These fully automated vertical storage systems take up less floor space, allowing the company to condense 30% of all picks, 11,000 SKUs, and eliminate 138 feet per pick.

The Solution: Zoned Picking, WES, and Vertical Lift Modules (VLMs)

The company also invested in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). These transport robots independently move products from the picking zones through the warehouse to a centralized packing location, eliminating unproductive travel time.

Introducing such a transformational change in the way the facility operated meant that everyone on the team immediately had a skills gap; in fact, 250 employees’ jobs changed entirely.

Introducing Multiple New Tools Without Disrupting the Workforce

Other members of the workforce needed to be trained to maintain and troubleshoot the AMR fleet. And some employees required cross-training to operate the VLMs as well. In total, 600 employees needed retraining to do parts or all of their job in the new business environment.

“Automation” can be a scary word for many people. Because they understood these potential workforce concerns, management was focused on helping their employees feel comfortable and confident with the upcoming changes.

Closing the Skills Gap: Reskilling 600 Warehouse Employees at Scale

Acadia showed company leadership how to simplify complex procedures in a way that kept employees informed rather than overwhelmed. 

The Operational Excellence team created comprehensive SOP documents that employees could use for training, as well as revisit on the job to refresh their knowledge. This initiative led to measurable efficiency: on average, each employee references these documents four times a day.

Building a Culture of Operational Excellence With Digital SOPs

With Acadia, they also created an AMR manual with acknowledgments, quizzes, and procedures; the company incorporated these Acadia SOPs into their leadership training regimen. The result? The AMR onboarding and deployment became the most successful project in years.

According to the operational excellence manager, Acadia helped decrease employee apprehension while simultaneously making automation and new technology more exciting. Best of all, the business adopted the changes with minimal disruptions or delayed orders. Some employees have even been promoted because of their new skillsets.

Results: Faster Adoption, Higher Throughput, and Confident Employees

• 600 employees reskilled in just a few months
• Increased efficiency to double the number of pallets packed/hour
• Rapid adoption of new technology with virtually no downtime
• Reduced travel waste and improved pick rate

Find out how can Acadia help your business.