Automation Planning
Automate what pays.Prove it first.
AutoStore, AMRs, pick towers — automation is the biggest cheque a warehouse writes. WareBee decides which items earn a slot in it, balances the work across it, and simulates the whole business case on your digital twin before you commit a penny.
Plan your automation
What actually belongs in AutoStore?
Fill a goods-to-person system with the wrong SKUs and it runs slower than the racking it replaced. WareBee scores every item on the factors that decide it — velocity, cube, order affinity, seasonality — and tells you, item by item, what earns a slot in AutoStore versus what stays in regular racking.
It's the same question for any goods-to-person or shuttle system: which stock pays for the automation, and which just fills it up.
- AutoStore / goods-to-person suitability, per SKU
- Velocity, cube, affinity and seasonality weighed together
- Keep the wrong items out before they slow the system down
The automation decision
What WareBee weighs before you buy the robot.
Every factor scored on your own data, every scenario simulated in the twin — so the business case is evidence, not a vendor's brochure.
Item velocity
How often each SKU is picked — the first test of whether it earns an automated slot.
Cube & dimensions
What fits the bins and ports, and what wastes them — size decides suitability as much as speed.
Order affinity
Which items travel together, so automation isn't split across systems on the same order.
Throughput & peak
Whether the system holds up at peak, not just on an average Tuesday.
Labour impact
The hours automation actually saves — and where the remaining manual work lands.
Automation ROI
Cost, throughput and labour modelled together, so payback is proven before capital is committed.
Balance the automation you already have
Automation you own still needs planning. WareBee load-balances the work across pick towers, shuttle ports and goods-to-person stations, so no station is a bottleneck while another sits idle — and the whole line runs at the throughput you paid for.
Test a reconfiguration, a new wave strategy or a peak-season plan in the digital twin first, and see the effect on every station before you change anything on the floor.
- Load-balance pick towers, ports and GTP stations
- Kill bottlenecks while other stations idle
- Simulate reconfigurations before peak, not during it
Learn more
What is warehouse automation planning?
Warehouse automation planning is deciding what to automate, which stock to put in it, and how to run it — before and after the capital is spent. It's the difference between an AutoStore or pick-tower that pays back on schedule and one that becomes an expensive bottleneck full of the wrong SKUs.
WareBee plans it on your digital twin. Because the twin already models your items, orders and space, it can score every SKU for goods-to-person suitability, simulate throughput and ROI for AutoStore, AMRs or shuttles, and load-balance the work across the stations you install — all on your real data.
That turns automation from a leap of faith into a modelled decision: which items go in, what the system will deliver at peak, what it saves in labour, and when it pays for itself — evidence you can take to the board before you sign the order.