a large third-party logistics campus in the Indianapolis metro area
How a Midwest 3PL Cut Case-Picking Labor Hours 42% With Pallet AMRs
A large logistics campus replaced pallet-jack travel with AMR case picking, saving more than 42 percent of labor hours and lifting productivity above 1.7x.
- 42%+
- hours saved
- 1.7x
- productivity
- 2x
- throughput
- Zone
- directed picks
Based on a documented real-world deployment. Figures are from public reporting; the organization is not named.
Case picks ate the shift
Case picking runs through most of this operator’s U.S. warehouse network, yet the workflow still depended on teammates driving pallet jacks along every pick path and climbing on and off for each stop.
At the Indianapolis metro campus, that travel dominated shift time, slowed order release, and added safety exposure on busy aisles. Leadership wanted flexible automation without a fixed conveyor spine.
- Manual pallet jack travel on every order
- Repeated mount and dismount at each pick
- Labor tied up on non-value miles
Robots drive, people pick
The site deployed pallet-handling autonomous mobile robots that follow optimized pick paths while human teammates work in directed zones along the route. Orchestration software ties the fleet to the warehouse management system so orders batch cleanly across robots and pickers.
Instead of one person driving and picking alone, the robot carries the pallet through the aisle while zone-based staff load cases at staged handoff points. Training focused on hand signals, quantity checks, and how to call the next robot move from the floor.
- Map pick paths and zone handoff points
- Integrate fleet software with the WMS
- Pilot pallet AMRs on case-pick lanes
- Expand zone picking once travel time drops
Measured floor gains
After deployment, the campus reported productivity above 1.7 times the prior manual baseline and labor hours savings exceeding 42 percent compared with traditional case picking.
Published results also describe workflow throughput rising by nearly double, with pickers freed from driving so they can stay at the pick face. Safety improved because teammates no longer step on and off moving pallet jacks through the shift.
What 3PLs can copy
This story is a documented industry deployment, not a Service Robot Co. customer account. It still shows how a vendor-neutral integrator should scope case pick AMRs: prove zone handoffs on one campus, size the fleet against real WMS waves, and finance the pilot before you scale to sister buildings.
Service Robot Co. selects pallet AMR platforms, runs site assessments, and supports warehouse robot rental or lease programs with nationwide service engineers on one contract. A phased deployment avoids shutting down lanes while pick paths are remapped.