The robotic cube storage system, AutoStore, will enable Thorlabs to accommodate future growth by maximizing storage space within their new distribution center.
Figure 1: Rendering of Thorlabs’ new distribution center
"We appreciate the Kardex Team’s collaborative approach. They were able to analyze all aspects of our operation and provide a complete design that met our business needs, with project development and installation timelines that align perfectly with Thorlabs’ timeline for building completion. Kardex addressed our specific requirements and pain points with a straightforward automation solution " says Danielle Strong, VP of Global Supply Chain.
The robotic cube storage system offers sufficient product storage density to meet Thorlabs’ 10 year growth plan within the most efficient amount of space. With a global average uptime of 99.7%, AutoStore robots are operational 24 hours a day, reliably preparing orders, even outside normal working hours.
AutoStore is a fully automated and intelligent goods-to-person storage and retrieval system offering leading product storage density. Bins are stacked vertically in a grid and retrieved by intelligent, battery-powered robots that travel on top of the grid system, sorting, carrying and delivering bins to the respective workstations (ports), where a variety of warehouse operations can be performed (picking, packing, replenishment, inventory control, etc.). The flexible, tailor-made system fits even the most unusually shaped facilities, allowing the grid to be placed around columns, on mezzanines and on multiple levels. The bins are stacked neatly on top of each other in a condensed grid-style system, increasing storage capacity up to four times and performance up to 10 times that of traditional storage methods. AutoStore can easily adapt to changing order fulfillment requirements through a flexible configuration of the robots, ports and quantity of bin locations.
Figure 3: Visualization of the AutoStore system planned for Thorlabs
Kardex FulfillX is a pioneering warehouse execution system; a focused “pick to pack” solution built to deliver streamlined results exclusively for AutoStore empowered by Kardex. Kardex FulfillX takes the unexpected surprises out of go-live and allows new AutoStore systems to ramp-up faster and meet or exceed the business case sooner. The Kardex FulfillX WES software is a standard and flexible product that will integrate easily with Thorlabs’s Host WMS and allow for current state processes to remain unchanged. FulfillX is designed to be intuitive, and operator training time is minimal.
Thorlabs, a vertically integrated photonics products manufacturer, was founded in 1989 to serve the laser and electro-optics research market. As that market has spawned a multitude of technical innovations, Thorlabs has extended its core competencies in an effort to play an ever-increasing role to serve the Photonics Industry at the research end, as well as the industrial, life science, medical, and defense segments. The organization’s highly integrated and diverse manufacturing assets include semiconductor fabrication of Fabry-Perot, DFB, and VCSEL lasers; fiber towers for drawing both silica and fluoride glass optical fibers; MBE/MOCVD epitaxial wafer growth reactors; extensive glass and metal fabrication facilities; advanced thin film deposition capabilities; and optomechanical and optoelectronic shops.