Automating internal transport: five questions to answer before you call a supplier

Automating internal transport is a finance and organisation decision before it is an engineering one. A business owner can answer the five key questions with in-house data, before any supplier visit. The answers show whether mobile robots will pay back, and they make every supplier meeting shorter.

1. What does moving material cost you today?

Most companies do not know the real cost of internal transport, because nobody owns it. The cost is spread across warehouse staff, machine operators and supervisors.

Count four things for one normal week: the people who move loads, the shifts they cover, the trips they make and the empty runs. Empty runs are the hidden part. At the label production plant of Etisoft, warehouse staff moved pallets to the printing machines with hand pallet trucks and table trolleys. They also had to bring empty pallets back to every machine. That return work was part of the job, but it did not appear in any production report.

2. Is your material flow repeatable?

Mobile robots pay back on routes that repeat many times per shift between fixed points. A flow that changes every day is a poor first candidate.

A good test is simple: can a machine operator describe the transport task in one sentence? At the Etisoft plant, the task is exactly that. The operator fills a pallet with rolls of labels, up to 500 kg, and presses a button on a panel. A mobile robot takes the pallet to the correct destination and brings an empty pallet back. If your flows can be described this way, automation is realistic.

3. How much space and traffic do you have?

Tight aisles and busy routes do not rule out mobile robots, but they change the design and the cost. At the Etisoft plant, the main challenge was the small space between production stations and crowded transport paths.

The engineers chose a fixed route on magnetic tape, although the robot can navigate autonomously. A fixed route lets employees predict where the robot will go. The robot also works below its top speed. It can reach 5 km/h, but in the hall it moves at up to 2 km/h. It slows to 1 km/h when people or objects are near and stops when its protection zone is violated.

For a business owner, this is a trade-off to understand early. Lower speeds mean safer shared spaces, but they can also mean more robots for the same volume.

4. What happens at night, at weekends and during absence?

Continuity is often worth more than the labour saving itself. A mobile robot does not take holidays, and it does not need a replacement on the night shift.

A published example from the automotive sector shows the effect. At the Lumileds Poland plant in Pabianice, a fleet of 6 mobile robots now runs 24/5. The published return on investment was shorter than 3 years. It came from replacing forklift trucks, lower labour costs and continuous operation during employee absence, at night and at weekends. If your peak problem is staffing the late shift, count that value in the business case.

5. Who will own the system after go-live?

A mobile robot system needs an owner inside the company, not only a supplier contract. Someone must handle transport requests, small faults and changes to the layout.

The Etisoft project team named three success factors at its own plant: employee discipline, openness to innovation and management commitment. None of them is technical. All of them depend on decisions that only the business owner can make: who is trained, who is responsible and how to measure success.

What to ask for when you do call a supplier

With the five answers ready, ask each supplier for the same three things. First, a pre-implementation analysis of your real flows. Second, a simulation of the planned system before you sign the contract. Third, a clear list of what is included: docks, charging, IT integration, training and support.

Suppliers that design, manufacture and integrate their own systems, such as Etisoft, put the design stage first for this reason. That stage includes process simulation in FlexSim, infrastructure design and a preliminary safety audit. A supplier that quotes robots without these steps quotes only part of the project.

Start with one repeatable route and measure it for a few months. A small, measured first step is the safest way to turn automation from a slogan into a number on your profit and loss account.

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