Logistics Consulting

When is automation really worth it?

Many companies ask themselves this question—and it’s the right one to ask. Automation isn’t an end in itself. It’s worthwhile when the volume, variety, and cost-effectiveness are right. We help you figure that out—before budgets are approved.
FalkenSteg supports you in:

• the identification and prioritization of opportunities for automation (structured potential analysis)
• the use of material handling systems, AGVs (automated guided vehicles), AMRs, and autonomous robotic systems
• a selection of automated storage and picking systems (from carousel racks to AutoStore)
• the phased automation of brownfield environments (retrofits during ongoing operations) and greenfield projects (new construction)
• Feasibility and ROI analyses as a reliable basis for decision-making

Typical payback periods for well-designed automation projects range from two to five years—depending on labor costs, throughput, and error rates. We’ll work through the numbers with you.

Transportation is one of the largest cost drivers in logistics—and at the same time, an area where many companies fail to tap into their cost-saving potential. Fragmented carrier landscapes, opaque freight rates, a lack of data, and outdated processes lead to additional costs and operational inefficiencies.

FalkenSteg supports you with:

• Analyzing and optimizing your transport networks (routes, modes, shipment structures)
• Freight cost benchmarking and tender management – data-driven and market-neutral
• Carrier management and service provider oversight – from selection and onboarding to performance measurement
• Route planning and consolidation strategies to reduce empty runs and CO₂ emissions
• TMS selection and implementation support as the foundation for transparent, controllable transport processes
• Multimodal transport concepts (road, rail, sea, air) – tailored to your service levels and cost structure

Whether general cargo, less-than-truckload (LTL), full truckload (FTL), or parcel shipping: We lay the groundwork for transparent, cost-efficient, and resilient transport structures.

Contract logistics partnerships are long-term, strategic decisions—with a significant impact on costs, service quality, and flexibility. Whether it’s a new tender, a change in service provider, or the optimization of an existing partnership, the complexity of these projects requires structured processes, clear requirements, and impartial evaluation.

FalkenSteg supports you with:

• Make-or-buy analyses: In-house operations vs. outsourcing – objectively evaluated based on costs, risk, flexibility, and strategic fit
• Tendering and awarding contract logistics mandates – from the scope of work to bid evaluation and contract negotiation
• Defining SLAs, KPIs, and governance structures for a manageable, partnership-based collaboration
• Performance management of existing contract logistics relationships – including benchmarking, optimization levers, and escalation protocols
• Site and network planning for the expansion, relocation, or consolidation of logistics sites

Our experience shows that the greatest opportunities for improvement often lie not in changing service providers, but in refining requirements, contract structures, and operational management.

Intralogistics is the operational backbone of your logistics operations. Inefficient internal material and information flows generate hidden costs that, in many companies, only become apparent through a structured analysis.

Our services include:

• Analysis and optimization of internal material flows between receiving, warehousing, production, and shipping
• Layout and material flow planning (route optimization, zoning, picking strategies)
• Production and warehouse logistics concepts (FIFO, ABC analysis, cross-docking, VMI)
• Evaluation of existing warehouse structures and development of scalable roadmaps for growth and automation

A digital twin is a virtual representation of your real-world logistics processes—using real data. It allows you to run through different scenarios before making an investment: What happens if volume increases by 30%? Which layout is more efficient? Where do bottlenecks occur under load?

FalkenSteg uses digital twin concepts to:

• virtually map and analyze logistics processes and material flows
• simulate different layout, automation, and capacity scenarios
• identify bottlenecks, risks, and performance limits early on
• support investment decisions with data
• continuously monitor and improve operations after implementation

Many companies already have systems in place—but they don’t communicate with each other, don’t accurately map processes, or are simply outdated. The right IT foundation isn’t just a matter of budget, but of clearly defined requirements and the ability to make informed choices.

Our areas of focus:

• Selection and implementation support for Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Transport Management Systems (TMS), and Yard Management Systems (YMS)
• Defining requirements, specifications, and terms of reference for tenders
• System integration into existing IT landscapes (ERP, SCM, MES, IoT platforms)
• Digitization of inventory management, control, and reporting
• Impartial support during selection processes and vendor management

As an independent logistics consultancy, we represent exclusively your interests—not those of a software or system provider.

The most effective quick wins in warehouse optimization are organizational rather than technical in nature, and they typically require no investment budget.

From our projects, particularly in manufacturing operations, these come down to five key levers:

1. Slotting based on pick frequency – fast movers (A-items) at grab height and close to the packing stations, slow movers toward the back.
2. Cleaning up master data – incorrect dimensions, weights, and packaging units are one of the most common causes of picking errors and stock discrepancies.
3. Consolidating travel paths through route optimization and zoning.
4. Clearly defined picking strategies (e.g. multi-order or batch picking instead of single picks).
5. Removing slow movers and dead stock from the forward areas, which immediately frees up storage slots and picking capacity.

In practice, this can noticeably reduce travel times and picking errors within four to eight weeks, without putting up a single new rack.

We recommend prioritizing these levers in a compact analysis before deciding on larger investments in technology or automation. Otherwise, you end up automating a poorly designed process.

The right type of warehouse comes down to three factors: article structure (number and size of SKUs), pick frequency, and available floor space or height. There is no universally best solution, only the most economical one for your specific volume profile and on-site conditions.

For orientation:

• wide-aisle warehouses (aisle widths from roughly 2.8 m) are flexible, can be served by standard forklifts, and are inexpensive to set up, but they cost floor space.
• Narrow-aisle warehouses (aisle widths of around 1.5 to 1.8 m) use space significantly better, but require narrow-aisle trucks and a level, load-bearing floor quality.
• Automated small parts warehouses (AS/RS) and compact container systems achieve the highest storage density and space utilization on a small footprint, and are well suited to large numbers of small-item articles with high access frequency.
• High-bay warehouses and fully automated systems play to their strengths with high volume, high storage density, and stable processes, but they tie up capital and reduce flexibility when the product range changes.

In manufacturing operations, the connection to production supply is also decisive. A warehouse that does not reliably supply the line at the right cycle is not economical, even with high storage density. Which type of warehouse pays off is something we determine based on your real article and movement data, not on catalog values.

Warehouse automation pays off when volume, variance, and economics align. It is not an end in itself. The decisive factors are order volume, picks per day, article structure, and labor costs: the higher and more stable the volumes, and the more repetitive the processes, the faster the investment pays for itself.

As a rough rule of thumb from practice, automation becomes interesting from a few thousand picks per day and in multi-shift operations, because that's when the labor cost savings cover the capital costs. Depending on scope and utilization, typical projects amortize within three to seven years, driven by lower labor costs, better space utilization, and reduced error rates.

The most common design mistake is an overly optimistic utilization assumption: an oversized system significantly extends the payback period and robs the logistics operation of the flexibility to respond to changes in product range or volume. For manufacturing operations with fluctuating batch sizes, partial automation is therefore often the more economical path than full automation. In a potential analysis using your real volume profiles, we assess which level of automation pays off before any budgets are released.

The difference lies in navigation, and therefore in flexibility. AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles) follow fixed, predefined routes, such as induction loops, magnetic strips, or reflector markers. They are robust, mature, and economical for stable, high-frequency standard transports (e.g. recurring routes between goods receipt, warehouse, and production line), but they can only be rerouted with considerable effort.

AMRs (Autonomous Mobile Robots), by contrast, navigate freely using laser scanners and mapping (SLAM), dynamically avoid obstacles and people, and can be flexibly reassigned to new routes and tasks via software.

This flexibility comes at a price: AMRs are usually more expensive to purchase per vehicle, and their economic viability depends more heavily on fleet management (swarm control) and IT integration. As a guideline: AGVs for stable layouts and consistent transport relations; AMRs for frequently changing routes, mixed human-and-robot traffic, or step-by-step scaling.

Which system fits depends specifically on layout, product mix, and volumes, and can be assessed in advance using the transport matrix rather than by trial and error in live operations.

The duration depends heavily on the type of project. A pure analysis or concept phase, such as a potential analysis for warehouse optimization or a requirements definition for a new system, typically takes five to ten weeks. Implementation projects like a WMS rollout, a layout redesign, or the integration of conveyor and automation technology range from five to fifteen months, depending on complexity and the size of the operation.

In manufacturing companies, experience shows that additional time is needed for coordination with ongoing production, because the redesign must not interrupt the material flow to the line. The estimate only becomes reliable once the scope, interfaces, and desired level of automation have been defined.

Selecting a Transport Management System (TMS) doesn't start with the system, it starts with your own processes. The decisive factors are shipment structure (less-than-truckload, partial and full truckload, parcel), the modes of transport used, the number and heterogeneity of carriers, the interfaces to ERP and WMS, and the reporting and freight cost control requirements.

What matters most is a clean, weighted requirements definition before comparing the market. Otherwise, the best sales presentation ends up winning instead of the best functional fit.

We recommend documenting the requirements in a detailed specification (requirements and functional specs) and comparing providers in a structured tender using identical test scenarios (e.g. a real shipment mix). The evaluation then covers functional scope, the ability to integrate into the existing IT landscape, and total cost of ownership over the contract term, not just the license price. As a vendor-neutral consultancy, we represent your interests exclusively and accompany you from requirements analysis through to go-live.

A Warehouse Management System (WMS) is the control backbone of your warehouse processes, which is why the selection should be reasoned from your actual workflows, not from the vendors' feature catalogs. The decisive factors are warehouse structure, picking strategies, daily throughput, and the planned level of automation, plus the connection to ERP, TMS, and existing conveyor and storage technology.

In manufacturing companies, integration with production is an added factor: the WMS must cleanly map goods receipt, material staging, and feedback from production (shop floor data collection / MES), otherwise a disconnect arises between warehouse and line. A common and expensive mistake is buying an oversized system whose functions are never used in day-to-day operations. Equally risky is underestimating the interfaces, where most implementations actually fail.

We recommend prioritizing the truly relevant requirements in a functional specification, obtaining comparable offers on an identical basis, and evaluating not just functional scope but also future viability, upgradeability, and total cost of ownership. That's the only way the decision holds up over the medium to long term, both technically and economically.

The three terms describe different starting points in logistics planning. Greenfield means planning a logistics site largely from scratch, on a blank slate, for example in the case of new construction, site relocation, or building a new distribution center. This offers the greatest design freedom, because the building, material flow, and technology can be laid out without any legacy constraints.

Brownfield means improving existing warehouse, production, or transport structures during live operation. This is generally more demanding, because the building, processes, technology, staff, IT, and customer requirements are already set, and the redesign must not interrupt ongoing production and delivery.

Retrofit is a typical building block of many brownfield projects: existing systems, conveyor and storage technology, controls, or IT structures are modernized, expanded, or reconnected rather than fully replaced. This preserves investment budget and shortens implementation time, but it requires a careful assessment of what the legacy system can still technically deliver.

For brownfield and retrofit projects in particular, external logistics planning is valuable, because conversion during live operation, operational safety, investment level, and implementation sequence all have to be closely coordinated. In the worst case, an error in the sequence can bring production supply to a standstill.

Both. FalkenSteg is deliberately set up to be implementation-oriented. We take on both individual phases (such as just the requirements definition or tender support) and the entire project, from the initial analysis through to commissioning.

In our experience, logistics projects rarely fail because of the concept, but because of the implementation: interfaces that don't hold up in operation, master data that wasn't migrated, or change management that fails to bring along the staff in goods receipt and picking. That's why we stay involved through to stable commissioning, including the ramp-up curve and handover into regular operation. A concept that ends up in a drawer has no value for the operation, and we say that openly to our clients.