Case Study: Northern Tool & Equipment cuts labor costs nearly in half and frees up 50,000 sq ft with AutoStore

Northern Tool cuts labor costs nearly in half and frees up 50,000 sq ft with AutoStore

Northern Tool & Equipment, a retailer of industrial equipment, faced significant operational bottlenecks in its multi-channel retail operations due to manual fulfillment processes. The challenges included excessive labor overtime, capacity constraints, and high shipping costs from inefficient packaging. To overcome this, the company turned to the vendor AutoStore for its automated warehouse storage and retrieval system, implemented with the help of partner Swisslog.

The solution from AutoStore was an integrated automation system that combined high-density storage with custom packaging technology. This allowed orders to be picked directly into right-sized boxes, which streamlined the entire process. The results were comprehensive: Northern Tool freed up 50,000 square feet of space, reduced labor costs by nearly 50%, and achieved 99% same-day shipping, enabling efficient and cost-effective fulfillment for future growth.

Northern Tool & Equipment

Randy Woody

Director of Distribution Engineering