S&S Activewear Warehouse Automation Case Study

This case study details the implementation of Locus Robotics at S&S Activewear's Vaughan, Ontario distribution center. Faced with increasing demand and inefficiencies from manual batch picking, S&S sought to enhance their operations following their acquisition of alphabroder, which had successfully integrated robotic solutions. The deployment of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) was completed in a record 49 days without altering the existing warehouse layout. The transition to zone-based picking and Fast Pick strategies for high-velocity SKUs led to a significant improvement in productivity, with throughput increasing from 40 to 75 lines per hour. Additionally, training time was reduced by half, and ergonomic incident reports decreased. The case study highlights the benefits of automation, including improved employee work-life balance and operational efficiency, as S&S plans to expand its automation efforts across North America.