A new kid in town

CONSAFE MIGHT be a new player in the UK market, but this is no naive start-up. Consafe Logistics has more than 40 years of experience in warehousing and logistics, employs about 500 people and turns over some 681 million Swedish Kroner (£51m) per annum.

The company’s CEO Kent Olsson explains: “The UK is a very important market for us and we have a long-term strategy. We have a strong offering and there is a crystal clear position for us to take on the UK market. We don’t want to only sell the best product, we want to be a trusted partner. We feel we have strong USPs with regards to our expertise in both warehouse operations and project management.

“A lot of warehousing in the UK requires modernisation and we feel we have the experts to help meet productivity goals at a time when sustainability is also a key objective.”

Consafe takes full responsibility for its implementations from staying on budget to completing on time, without relying on partners.

“A lot of our competitors use implementation partners but the feedback we get from many customers is that they want one company to take responsibility for the product and the implementation projects. We want a long term partnership with customers, looking not just at where they are going as a company, but also helping them with insights on where their industry is going,” adds Kent.

The model is to have a small local team in each territory close to the customer, backed up with 500+ experts in the group. Consafe will help UK companies in their quest to modernise warehouse operations.

Expertise

In technical terms, Consafe sees the use of AI tools and mobile robotic integration as key strengths for the firm. Kent characterises AI as having moved on from something that is just talked about to something that is being regularly implemented. Consafe itself has been integrating AI tools into its feature-rich AstroWMS product since 2018. The WMS also has the ability to create a digital twin for your warehouse, which can help you plan for the future in an increasingly complex and unpredictable world. This can allow you to, for example, model new automated equipment in the warehouse before you go live.

But back to AI. “We mainly use it to optimise sub-processes today, but we are also looking into how we can use AI to control the full warehouse,” enthuses Kent.

Processes assisted by Consafe’s AI include pick route optimisation, which gives greater efficiency, and also, when managing MHE, less wear and tear on the forklifts; replenishment, so it doesn’t need to be carried out at the same time as picking; article association, which spots items which tend to be picked together; and predicting workforce needs.

The AI technology works through designed algorithms continually refined by trial and error in the warehouse. 

Consafe is also an expert in integrating automated equipment into the warehouse, not just in terms of using modelling before you go live as already mentioned, or in making sure different parts of the warehouse are communicating smoothly, but also in helping to choose the right automated product for you.

Kent explains: “There are so many automated solutions on the market, which is good, but it brings great complexity for the end user. We act as advisors for our customers what we believe will work well with their processes and our WMS/WCS. We are independent to the automation market, and we are able to integrate with more or less everybody. We really want to be a long-term strategic partner, and some customers have us front and centre when they are building an automation strategy.”

Download free

You can download Consafe’s recent Navigating Change trend report for free here - www.consafelogistics.com/trend-report-2024-navigating-change