Q&A with…
Russell Holmes, Sales Director, AutoStore.
Q What is your company’s USP?
A AutoStore™ holds a simple yet powerful vision: to store and move things for everyone, everywhere.
Founded in Norway, we’ve grown into a global technology company, focused on intelligent fulfilment. AutoStore uses advanced robotics and software to automate and orchestrate order fulfilment. Built around a dense grid structure, sophisticated software navigates a fleet of robots to continuously complete fulfilment requests with systems driving performance in excess of 40,000 order lines per hour.
Our goal is to ensure orders arrive accurately and faster than ever, with minimal environmental impact. Robust and diverse, our partner network, each with unique attributes, is also an important part of what we do. We work through 23 global partners, eight of which are active in the UK.
With AutoStore, brands gain speed, efficiency, an improved workplace – and much more floor space.
Q What challenges do your customers face and how are you helping them respond?
A Fulfilment requirements are ever-evolving, with pressure on logistics leaders unrelenting. Consumers expect faster delivery, broader product selections and flawless service, regardless of disruption. At the same time, customers face labour shortages, volatile supply chains, rising costs beyond their control and additional complexities, such as upgrading complex legacy solutions.
At AutoStore, everything starts with our customers. We help them to move greater volumes through smaller spaces, with fewer people, and under tighter deadlines, while keeping and outperforming their customer promises. Our partner network is important in this process – the unique capabilities of each partner give us the ability to align with end user requirements much more closely on a customer-to-customer and project-by-project basis.
The end result is that we enable customers to deliver with greater speed, accuracy, adaptability, and scalability, while continuing to stay ahead of future demands.
Q Tell us about your recent innovations?
A The new products launched for 2026 aim to tackle key warehouse challenges our customers have told us they face, as well as transforming bottlenecks into opportunities for higher performance.
Our much anticipated launch of AutoCase automates the loading and unloading of full cases and enables specific item-picking until empty. By combining case handling and piece-picking in one flow, throughput is increased and manual handling is reduced, improving cost and safety.
FlexBins enable our three different bin sizes to be integrated into a single grid, boosting storage density and SKU variety.
We’ve also enhanced CarouselAI, our automated robotic picking station, by improving bin placement to enable faster retrievals and support lighter item handling.
Watch this space for more exciting developments coming soon!
Q What industry sectors do you target?
A AutoStore’s versatility and scalability make it suitable for many verticals, such as retail e-commerce, fashion, grocery (including multi-temperature and frozen-only), healthcare, industrials and 3PLs.
At the latest count we have over 1,750 sites installed in 60 countries. The UK is a high-growth area for us, with over 60 sites deployed.
Q How important is technology in modern warehousing and logistics?
A Appropriate, scalable adoption of reliable, state-of-the-art technology is essential to those seeking effective competitive advantage and higher throughput capabilities with demand flexibility.
By increasing labour efficiency, optimising warehouse space, lowering error rates, and reducing inventory holding costs – combined with 24-hour operation – AutoStore has in some cases reduced operating costs by 40%, with a payback period of under two years.
Intelligent fulfilment isn’t just about maximising what you have. It’s future-proofing fulfilment operations, flexibly, so efficiency enhancement leads to consistently over-performing scenarios.
AUTOSTORE
Unit 1, Redwing Court, Willow Farm Business Park, Castle Donington, Derbyshire, DE74 2UH
Email: [email protected]
Read the full Logistics Matters Annual Guide here.
