Challenge

Founded in 1988, Allen Distribution is a grocery distributor located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 2020, the pressures of COVID were hitting Allen hard as they worked to manage increased orders in combination with a severe labor retention and resource shortage. The Allen team quickly realized that to fulfill orders and stay ahead of the competition, automating a number of their warehouse workflows was necessary to hit their target goals and deliver on their promises to customers.

Solution

Allen focused on its most labor-intensive application: case picking. They brought Prime Robotics in early in the process, and chose them as a robotics partner in part because of their payload ability of 4400+ pounds for pallet movers, combined with their grocery logistics expertise.

Prime worked diligently on custom workflows, key software integrations and consulted with the client on best practices for efficiency and cost savings. The MobilePallet can operate for an eight hour shift on a single charge.

Results

Allen Distribution has realized fantastic results from their case picking automation. Previously picking 135-150 picks per hour manually, they’re now realizing close to 300 picks / hour with Prime Robotics MobilePallet Solution. Allen now completes orders faster, giving them room to scale and increase revenue, and they’re looking to enhance more of their logistics with Prime Robotics automation, as well as continuing to utilize support and maintenance services.

“We’ve had a long relationship with Prime Robotics, from exploring ideas to the actual implementation and beyond. Our teams love working with the robots, and training is so much easier now for new hires,” Jeremy Bonebrake, Warehouse Improvement Specialist, Allen Distribution, said.

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Editors note: This case study was taken from a recent case study published by Prime Robotics, on their website.