Designing the High Throughput Warehouse: Automation Strategies That Scale

Buoyed by geopolitical tension, transportation risks, labor challenges and other disruptions, global supply chains are smack-dab in a period of sustained uncertainty. Throw in the fact that consumer preferences and demands are always evolving, warehouses and distribution centers need to be more flexible and agile than ever before. Failure to do so could quickly lead to fulfillment delays, which thereby snowball into inventory problems, lost revenue and an erosion of customer trust.

In today's environment of rapid change and continued uncertainty, incorporating the right automated solutions is no longer just "nice to have" or solely a path to facilitate strategic growth — it's a necessity for keeping pace with the ever-evolving threats and trends, and for maintaining the service quality your customers expect.

Integrated automation is a foundation for stability, scalability and control, and every warehouse should strive to incorporate the right solutions to facilitate high-throughput environments while leaving the door open for further expansion and scaling. As a world leader in automated material handling solutions, Daifuku Intralogistics specializes in designing warehouses and distribution centers to develop and integrate solutions to help them succeed. Read on to learn more about why it is now more important than ever or contact Daifuku to get started on your automation journey.

Fulfillment Operations: The New Reality

The pace of change in logistics is accelerating at a rate never seen, forcing fulfillment operations to evolve or risk falling behind and losing market share. Some of the new realities that distribution centers are forced to navigate include:

E-Commerce and Omnichannel Growth

It's no secret that e-commerce has undergone a rapid transformation in recent years, and it shows no signs of slowing. In 2025, online sales accounted for nearly a quarter of total retail sales. By 2029, e-commerce is expected to account for about 27% of all retail sales.

Along with a rise in e-commerce comes the growing importance of adopting an omnichannel sales strategy to ensure a consistent customer experience across all platforms. As a result, there's increased pressure on warehouses and distribution centers to handle all these platforms simultaneously, while also being mindful of changing consumer dynamics and the increased complexity of orders (i.e., fewer ordered products but orders placed more frequently).

Peak Season is Every Season

Not long ago, warehouses could predict busy and non-busy seasons and run their operations accordingly. However, this is turning into a thing of the past. While historical data can help warehouses plan and prepare, peak season is increasingly becoming every season as high demand becomes more consistent year-round. What's more, little recovery time between demand surges places more pressure on systems, processes and labor. Bottom line: There's no time to slow down and reset in today's warehouse environment.

Labor Challenges and Cost Pressures

Speaking of labor challenges, staffing warehouses and distribution centers is — and will continue to be — a problem. Driven by factors including an aging workforce, high employee turnover and a demanding work environment, it's expected that job openings in this sector will eclipse 2 million in the United States by the year 2030. While salaries have improved by more than 30% since 2021, the labor challenges underscore the importance of integrated automation.

Incremental Fixes are a Thing of the Past

You can't put Band-Aids on problems in warehouses or distribution centers any longer. Incremental fixes only treat symptoms, not root problems, so while they may remain effective for a while, they'll eventually fail. Furthermore, changing a single small piece can have a ripple effect across the entire warehouse, creating bottlenecks, increasing costs and disrupting a facility's operations. Even when you think you're making an improvement, it could end up causing more problems long-term if you're not careful.

External Disruptions Are More Damaging than Ever Before

Noting the above challenges, along with the geopolitical tensions we mentioned at the beginning of this piece, it shouldn't be a surprise that any external disruption could be more damaging than ever before and they can snowball if you're not prepared. Delays or bottlenecks anywhere in the supply chain, including fulfillment processes, can affect the entire operation.

Whether it's a transportation delay along a trade route or challenges balancing inventory and managing order backlogs, issues at one node affect the entire fulfillment chain.

Your customers don't care what issues you're facing internally they expect the same high level of service that they've come to know from years of working with you. It's why fulfillment centers and warehouses need to remain highly functional under periods of heightened stress. Your operations have to be comfortable being uncomfortable, with resilience becoming more than just a character trait, but a necessity.

Designing Warehouses for Adaptability and Continuity

The good news is that there are various strategies to ensure your warehouse operates resiliently, enabling it to navigate market volatility and avoid productivity lapses during disruptions. Here's a look at how to design a warehouse that's adaptable and continuous, regardless of external or internal challenges.  A distribution center built for adaptability and continuity is:

• Scalable and Modular

o Develop a well-planned facility master plan allowing for expansion without disruption

o Design for Scalable Automation when appropriate and layout the facility for expansion of highly automated fixed automation.  This is for systems that have stable and predictable volumes.

o Prevent single points of failure in movement with cross-functional flow paths.

o Simulation to right-size automation.

• Flexible and agile (can change quickly)

o Storage types are designed by matching storage velocity and not a single standard.

o Slot based on SKU behavior, not assumptions

o Design the building around flexible labor.

Cross-trained workstations

Ergonomic universal stations

Mobile workstations.

• Resilient and Redundant (can survive disruptions)

o Design for strategic buffers throughout the systems to prevent total shutdown.

o Eliminate single points of failure by providing critical redundancies for Power, IT Systems, Material Handling Equipment, and workstations.

• Visible and well-coordinated (uses real time information)

o Adaptability requires real-time decision making so that you can react before problems escalate.

o It is important to have robust WMS and WES software for automated systems to control material movement, buffering, sequencing, real-time inventory tracking and labor management.

Why Integrated Automation is No Longer a Luxury, But a Necessity

To summarize, investing in automation is imperative for surviving in a competitive global environment.  This is true because:

1. Demand Volatility is the new normal

2. Labor Constraints and Cost Pressures due to labor shortages, rising wages, increased training costs, and high turnover.

3. Throughput requirements have increased due to delivery expectations and higher SKU counts.

4. Complexity requires system coordination as there has been a key shift from isolated automation to integrated automation.

5. Need for real-time decision making which is provided by software which typically has features such as dynamic order prioritization, real-time routing decision making, and live workload balancing.

6. Space Constraints and Cost of Facilities – Systems like ASRS provide higher storage density, better cube utilization and reduced footprint for the same or greater throughput.

7. Service Level expectations are what customers expect and are non-negotiable.  Integrated Automation improves accuracy, traceability, and SLA consistency.

8. Resilience and Business Continuity Requirement.  Integrated Automation supports continuity by maintaining flow with fewer people, rerouting work dynamically, and reducing single points of failure.

9. Data Driven Continuous Improvement – Integrated Automation generates real-time performance metrics, bottleneck identification and predictive analytics.

10. Competitive Pressure – Your competitors are investing in robotics, AI driven flow optimization and fully integrated systems.

Contact Daifuku Intralogistics Today

Are you ready to begin your integrated automation journey? Or ready to take your automation to the next level?

Optimization is one thing, resilience is another and both are important for today's distribution center. Today's high-throughput, integrated solutions check several boxes, most notably the resiliency in times of uncertainty. By designing and investing in the right solutions, organizations will be better positioned to sustain their high performance and maintain the service levels their customers have come to expect, regardless of conditions.

Daifuku is here to help. As a world leader in automated material handling solutions, we're dedicated to helping our partners maintain speed, stability and scalability, even when external conditions are unpredictable. Contact us today to learn more and take your automation to new heights.

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