Automated Fulfillment: Changing the Ecommerce Game With Kevin Gibbon From Cytronic - Unboxing Logistics Ep. 89

Kevin Gibbon, CEO and co-founder at Cytronic, has built a 3PL that makes DTC ecommerce fulfillment faster, cheaper, and better. The secret? Automation.In this episode of Unboxing Logistics, Kevin joins Lori Boyer to share Cytronic’s story and discuss why automation is such a game changer in the warehousing world.Where manual warehouses are losing time (and money)If you’re thinking of upgrading your warehouse (or partnering with a tech-oriented 3PL), Kevin recommends focusing on the two most time-consuming tasks: picking and packing.He explains, “Picking from the bins, getting [items] to a pick cart [and then] to the actual packing station, that takes by far the most time. And then it would be the actual packaging to get it into some sort of assembly line or into different carrier bins. [Automating] those will be your biggest time saver.”What does an automated warehouse look like?When asked about warehouse automation technology, Kevin describes one of the highest-impact robotics systems at Cytronic: the ASRS, or automated storage and retrieval system.With the ASRS, he says, “You could get a SKU every seven seconds. Just unheard of.”Kevin also notes that automation goes beyond robots. It involves every process, even the ones that humans have a hand in.“We speed up everything possible … within the warehouse. And so it's not just robotics, but it's a streamlined process throughout.”Does automated mean human-free?According to Kevin, “There’s no such thing as fully autonomous anything.”While some warehouse processes are totally automatic, others still need human supervision. Thankfully, technology and human workers actually complement each other.For example, Cytronic “still [has] people on the floor. … But our goal is to just make it a lot easier for them. So it's going to be a more lightweight kind of warehousing job [with more] opportunities to grow within the company and run these things.”LinksConnect with Kevin on LinkedInVisit Cytronic’s website