Announcing Fulfillment Engines

For more than 30 years, I’ve helped companies optimize their fulfillment centers. I was typically the guy who got called when something wasn’t right. Over that time, I saw first-hand the challenges that customers face for e-commerce with today’s warehouse systems:

• Missing productivity targets and shipping deadlines due to inefficient processes and software – Human and/or equipment resources being under-utilized or spending long times idle starving for work – especially during batch/wave transitions. Delays from picker congestion, exceptions, and late replenishment issues.
• Systems optimized for vendors, not customers – Hot orders missing shipping deadlines because systems aren’t smart or real-time enough to re-prioritize, instead processing lower priority orders to meet contractual capacity rates.
• Inflexible fulfillment systems with major negative performance impacts from variations from the “design” order profile – Facilities designed for pre-defined order profiles and peak demand seasons, with little flexibility to adapt or scale-up/down when conditions or demand changes.
• Long, expensive automation projects – Companies spending years trying to deploy expensive automation equipment and then spending millions of dollars per year on maintenance and specialized support teams. And still having to use inefficient manual processes for their non-sortable and non-totable SKUs.

Each time I got called, I felt like the solutions we could deliver were too limited by warehouse software systems (e.g., WMS, WCS, or WES). I always dreamed of building fast, scalable waveless systems that were flexible - designed not only for specific order profiles but capable of adapting efficiently, regardless of order profiles.

Now, I’m on a mission to finally realize that dream and solve e-commerce fulfillment. I’m excited to announce my new venture – Fulfillment Engines. We’re building a platform from the ground-up that is waveless, scalable, and truly operates in real-time – not just using real-time data but making real-time decisions. Our goal is to help any company, ship every order, fast and on-time – without breaking the bank.

Our approach is different.

• Works for all orders – Too many warehouse projects are doomed by pre-defined order profiles. Things look great, until the order profile changes – or some SKU doesn’t fit in a piece of automation equipment. Fulfillment Engines is going to be flexible and work for any order, regardless of order size, SKU mix, or SKU dimensions.
• Cost effective automation with no big upfront costs – I believe efficiency should not come with a huge, upfront price tag. We help you reduce your labor costs by an average of 20% by helping your people do more with really smart software, not expensive automation equipment.
• Fast, easy, risk-free to get started – No more multi-year deployments, facility retrofits, or long, expensive software customization projects. I know it can feel risky to change fulfillment systems and I want to make modernizing simple and risk-free. You will be able to deploy our solution in just a few weeks (or less!). We’re also making it easy to get started with just a few orders or SKUs. As you get more comfortable, we’ve made it easy to scale and onboard more order volume and inventory to our platform.

If you’re interested in learning more, let’s talk!