an East Coast contract logistics fulfillment center operating a roughly three-hundred-fifty-thousand-square-foot distribution hub
How an East Coast Fulfillment Hub Cut Lead Time from Five Days to Two
A documented East Coast contract logistics hub replaced cart picking with collaborative AMRs and reported pick rates near 150 to 180 UPH with faster outbound cycles.
- 150-180
- UPH band
- 70-80
- Prior band
- 1-2 days
- Lead time
- 350K sf
- Footprint
Based on a documented real-world deployment. Figures are from public reporting; the organization is not named.
Cart picking stretched lead times
An East Coast contract logistics fulfillment center operating a roughly three-hundred-fifty-thousand-square-foot distribution hub relied on associates hauling carts through a high-volume retail program.
Pick rates clustered around seventy to eighty units per hour while outbound orders often needed four to five days to clear the building.
- Cart walks across a wide footprint
- Seasonal and temp labor mixes
- Multi-day outbound cycles
- Retail customer SLA pressure
Collaborative AMRs replaced cart hauls
Leadership deployed collaborative picking AMRs so associates picked at stations while bots moved product instead of manual cart pushes.
The site kept a blended workforce of full-time, seasonal, and temporary pickers while integrating bots into existing workflows.
- Swap cart hauls for AMR-led picking
- Keep blended staffing model
- Train pickers quickly on bot screens
- Use dashboards to track open orders
Published pick rates and lead time
Operations reported typical pick rates rising from about seventy to eighty units per hour to roughly one hundred fifty to one hundred eighty units per hour after AMRs.
Customer-facing lead time reportedly improved from about four to five days down to about one to two days in the public whitepaper quotes.
What retail-facing 3PLs can study
This is a documented industry example, not a Service Robot Co. customer claim. It links pick-rate gains to shorter outbound cycles when cart travel was the bottleneck.
Service Robot Co. selects OEM-neutral warehouse AMRs, then finances, deploys, integrates, trains, and services units through a nationwide engineer network. A free site assessment maps cart paths and SLA cutoffs before peak season.