A Supermarket Refrigerated Logistics Center Reports 36 Man Hours Saved a Day

Labor that runs through the cold night

A refrigerated logistics center works under a constraint most warehouses never meet. Product has to stay inside a tight temperature band, so crews move through cold aisles in heavy layers and gloves, and every extra trip into the cold adds time to the shift.

At a supermarket chain's refrigerated logistics center, a large share of that handling work fell into the late night hours. Moving and sorting still depended on people walking the floor, and the operation needed a way to carry that load without simply adding more shifts.

Matching about 50 robots to a cold building

The first filter was suitability. The robot supplier's system was described as suited to refrigerated environments, which narrowed the field before any layout work began.

Installation was the second filter. The system can be deployed in about one to two months and installs without floor anchoring, so the work did not require cutting into a cold floor. Deployment covered about 50 robots at the facility, and the rollout was sized to the late shift work that the operation most wanted to reduce.

Where the 36 hours came from

The headline result is a reduction of 36 man hours per day, as reported by the robot supplier for this refrigerated center. The supplier attributes most of that reduction to how late night operations ran once the robots took over the repetitive handling.

Scale and speed sit alongside the labor figure. About 50 robots were in service, and the system came online in roughly one to two months. Because no floor anchors were needed, the install avoided structural work in a building where the floor carries the cold.

These figures describe one facility and one supplier report. They are not a general benchmark for other cold storage sites.

What a cold storage operator can expect from a lease

Service Robot Co. is a full service, 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, so one partner handles the whole lifecycle.

Our robots are offered on a three year lease, with one fixed lease payment quoted after a site assessment. For a cold storage operation, that assessment checks the things this case turns on: temperature range, aisle geometry, floor condition and the late shift schedule that the labor savings depend on.

Service is part of the lease. Nationwide engineer coverage and on site dispatch keep a fleet working through the overnight hours, when a stalled unit costs the most. We do not promise any site the same 36 hours. We measure the late shift work first, then build the fleet around it.