Climbing Storage Robots in a European Sporting Goods Retailer's Seven Warehouses

The throughput ceiling in a seven site network

Running warehouses across seven European sites means the same problem shows up in seven places at once. Picking capacity is set by how far people walk, how densely stock is stored, and how many hands a peak week can find.

A multisite distribution network has to hold output steady from one building to the next while demand swings. Gains at a single site are easy to show. Gains that hold across a whole network are much harder to earn.

• Walking time between storage aisles and picking stations
• Storage density limited by available floor space
• Consistent output across sites with different layouts

Climbing storage robots deployed across all seven sites

The retailer's operation brought in climbing storage robots supplied by the robot supplier. These machines climb a storage structure to retrieve bins and bring goods to the people doing the picking, so less of the working day goes to walking.

The program covered all seven sites under one supplier. That kept equipment, software and support consistent across the network, so what one site learned could carry over to the next.

• Assess each site layout and storage density before any unit goes in
• Roll robots out in stages across the seven sites
• Train site teams on picking stations and routine checks
• Compare output at each site against its own starting point

Doubled output, as company reported

The headline result is that warehouse output doubled across the seven sites, according to the company. That figure comes from the operator and the program's own reporting, and it has not been independently measured.

The gain matters only if it holds at scale. A doubling at a few sites that does not repeat across the network tells a very different story from one that holds at every building. Treat the figure as a strong claim that still needs independent confirmation, not as a settled benchmark.

What a multisite program asks of an integrator

Service Robot Co. is an OEM neutral commercial robot integrator for US businesses. We select the right robots across manufacturers, then finance, deploy, integrate, train and service every unit through a nationwide US engineer network. This study describes a European deployment that Service Robot Co. did not run, but the decisions it raises are the same ones a US warehouse faces.

We lease robots only. A customer goes through a site assessment, then receives one fixed robot lease payment on a three year lease, with deployment, integration and service handled by one partner and one number. For a multisite operator, that single point of contact is often what separates a promising first site from a network that keeps its gains. Robot lease options should be compared on the whole lifecycle, not on the first unit alone.