Introduction
Warehouse demand is rarely completely consistent.
An operation might handle a relatively predictable volume for much of the year before experiencing significantly higher demand during seasonal peaks, promotions, new product launches or particularly busy trading periods.
This creates an important question when planning warehouse automation:
Should the system be designed around what the warehouse handles on an average day, or what it needs to cope with on its busiest day?
Designing entirely around average demand can leave an operation struggling when volumes increase. Designing everything around the highest possible peak can mean investing in capacity that sits underused for much of the year.
In practice, the right approach is usually more nuanced. Businesses need to understand their normal operation, their realistic peaks and how easily the automation can adapt when demand changes.
Why Average Throughput Does Not Tell the Whole Story
Average figures are useful when planning warehouse automation, but they can hide important variations.
Imagine a warehouse processes a certain number of orders over the course of a month. Dividing that figure by the number of operating days provides a daily average, but it does not show how those orders were actually distributed.
Some days may have been considerably quieter while others were much busier.
The same problem can occur within an individual shift.
An operation might have relatively low volumes for several hours before experiencing a concentrated period of high activity.
When designing automation, it is therefore important to understand not only the average throughput but also when and where demand increases.
What Happens If You Automate Only for an Average Day?
Designing a system around typical demand can keep initial capacity closer to what the business uses most of the time.
However, problems can appear when volumes rise above that level.
If the system cannot accommodate increased demand, businesses may experience:
- Product build-up
- Longer processing times
- Congestion
- Delays between processes
- Increased manual intervention
- Pressure on operators
- Bottlenecks elsewhere in the operation
Importantly, the problem may not necessarily be that the automation itself is too slow.
One process might have enough capacity while another cannot keep up.
For example, a conveyor may be capable of delivering cartons faster than the downstream packing process can handle them. Increasing conveyor speed would not solve the underlying problem.
Automation therefore needs to be considered as part of the complete material flow.
Should You Design Everything Around the Busiest Day?
Not necessarily.
The opposite approach is to design the entire automation system around the highest volume the warehouse could experience.
This may sound like the safest option, but it can create its own problems.
If the warehouse only reaches that volume for a small number of days each year, the business could end up paying for equipment and capacity that remains underused for most of its operating life.
A peak also needs to be understood properly.
Was the busiest day representative of something likely to happen again, or was it an unusual event?
Was the increased volume caused by genuine customer demand, or did another operational issue create a temporary backlog?
Designing around an exceptional day without understanding why it happened can lead to unnecessary overcapacity.
Start by Understanding What Your Peak Actually Looks Like
Before deciding how much automation capacity is required, businesses need a realistic picture of demand.
Useful information can include:
- Typical daily throughput
- Typical hourly throughput
- Peak daily throughput
- Peak hourly throughput
- Seasonal fluctuations
- Order profiles
- Product mix
- Number of SKUs
- Shift patterns
- Expected business growth
The duration of the peak is particularly important.
A warehouse experiencing increased demand for several months has a different challenge from one that experiences a two-hour rush each afternoon.
Similarly, a retailer with a predictable Christmas peak has different requirements from a manufacturer whose volumes remain relatively stable throughout the year.
Understanding the pattern behind the numbers helps determine what type of capacity and flexibility the operation actually needs.
Where Is the Real Bottleneck During Peak Demand?
Before adding automation capacity, it is worth identifying what actually limits the operation when volumes increase.
A warehouse may appear to have a general capacity problem when the real constraint exists within one particular process.
This could be:
- Vehicle unloading
- Product transport
- Picking
- Packing
- Sortation
- Pallet handling
- Storage
- Dispatch
Increasing capacity elsewhere will not necessarily solve that bottleneck.
For example, installing a faster conveyor upstream of a process that is already at maximum capacity may simply cause products to reach the bottleneck sooner.
Good automation planning therefore looks at how material moves through the complete operation rather than assessing individual pieces of equipment in isolation.
Can Conveyor Systems Be Designed for Changing Demand?
Yes.
Conveyor systems can be designed around required throughput while also considering how product volumes may change.
Controls and accumulation can be particularly important.
Rather than simply running products continuously towards a downstream process, conveyor zones can allow products to accumulate in a controlled way when the next stage temporarily cannot accept them.
This can help manage short-term differences between processes.
The physical layout can also be planned with future requirements in mind.
Where appropriate, consideration can be given to whether conveyor routes, additional workstations or other equipment may need to be added later.
This does not mean every conveyor system needs spare capacity everywhere. It means future requirements should be considered during the design stage rather than only once the existing system reaches its limit.
Can Warehouse Robots Make Capacity More Flexible?
Mobile robotics can offer a different type of scalability.
Where an operation uses autonomous mobile robots for suitable transport tasks, capacity may be influenced partly by the number of robots within the fleet.
This can create opportunities to expand a system as requirements grow rather than installing all potential capacity from the beginning.
However, adding more robots does not automatically produce an equal increase in throughput.
The wider operation still matters.
Robot routes, collection points, delivery points, charging requirements, traffic and the capacity of upstream and downstream processes can all affect performance.
A fleet should therefore be planned as part of the complete warehouse process rather than assuming that additional robots will always solve peak-demand problems.
What About Seasonal Warehouse Peaks?
Seasonality is one of the strongest reasons to think carefully about flexibility.
Retail, ecommerce and other sectors can experience substantial changes in demand at different points in the year.
Traditionally, businesses may respond by adding temporary labour during busy periods.
Automation changes the capacity question, but it does not remove seasonality.
Instead, businesses need to consider how their automated processes will respond when volumes increase.
For some operations, fixed automation with sufficient peak capacity may make sense.
For others, a combination of fixed automation, flexible equipment and additional labour may provide a better balance.
There is no requirement for every process to use the same approach.
Does Flexible Automation Mean Everything Needs to Be Mobile?
No.
Flexibility can mean several things.
A flexible warehouse automation strategy might include:
- Conveyor systems designed with future expansion in mind
- Mobile robots that can be added as requirements grow
- Modular equipment
- Multiple operating modes
- Adjustable processes
- Space for additional workstations
- Automation that integrates with manual processes
Fixed equipment can still form an important part of a flexible operation.
A conveyor carrying products between two permanent processes, for example, may not need to move simply because warehouse demand changes.
The important question is whether the overall system can respond to the types of change the business realistically expects.
How Much Spare Capacity Should Warehouse Automation Have?
There is no universal percentage of spare capacity that every warehouse automation system should have.
The appropriate level depends on the operation.
A business with highly predictable production volumes may require a different approach from an ecommerce warehouse where daily order volumes fluctuate significantly.
Businesses should consider factors such as:
- How much demand varies
- How frequently peaks occur
- How long peaks last
- Expected future growth
- Consequences of falling behind
- Ease of adding capacity later
- Cost of unused capacity
- Availability of manual alternatives
Rather than simply asking how much throughput the system can achieve, it is often more useful to ask how the operation behaves as it approaches that limit.
Should Future Growth Be Included in the Calculation?
Yes.
Automation is generally a longer-term investment, so designing solely around today’s requirements can create problems if the business is growing.
However, expected growth and theoretical maximum growth are not the same thing.
Businesses should consider realistic forecasts and discuss them during the design process.
It may not always be necessary to install all future capacity immediately.
In some cases, it may be more practical to design a system that can be expanded later.
This could mean leaving space for additional conveyor sections, allowing for extra robot capacity or ensuring controls and layouts can accommodate planned changes.
Planning for growth is therefore as much about expandability as it is about installing excess capacity from the beginning.
Could a Hybrid Approach Work Better?
For many warehouses, the answer does not need to be a choice between automation and manual processes.
A system can automate the repetitive workload experienced throughout the year while retaining additional flexibility for unusual peaks.
For example, automation might handle the core product flow while employees provide additional support during the busiest periods.
Different automation technologies can also be combined.
Fixed conveyors may handle predictable high-volume routes while mobile robots perform more variable transport tasks elsewhere.
The best combination depends on the operation, but a hybrid approach can prevent businesses from feeling that every possible peak scenario needs its own permanent automated capacity.
What Should You Tell an Automation Supplier?
When discussing a warehouse automation project, providing only an average throughput figure may not be enough.
It is useful to provide information about:
- Normal volumes
- Peak volumes
- Hourly fluctuations
- Seasonal patterns
- Product dimensions and weights
- Product mix
- Current bottlenecks
- Shift patterns
- Expected growth
- Plans for future expansion
The more accurately the supplier understands how demand changes, the easier it is to design around the real operation.
This can also help identify whether additional capacity is required throughout the system or only at particular bottlenecks.
So, Should You Automate for the Average or the Peak?
Neither figure should be considered on its own.
Average demand helps establish what the warehouse normally needs to achieve, while peak demand shows what happens when the operation is under its greatest pressure.
A good automation strategy considers both.
The aim is to provide enough capacity to handle realistic operational demands without automatically building an entire system around an exceptional scenario that may rarely occur.
Scalability can then become part of the design.
If demand grows or peak periods become more frequent, the business should understand which parts of the system can be expanded and where additional capacity would be required.
Conclusion
Warehouse automation should not be designed around a single throughput number.
Average figures are useful, but they can hide the periods when an operation is under the most pressure. Peak figures are equally important, but designing every part of a system around the busiest day ever recorded can result in capacity that spends most of the year unused.
The better approach is to understand how demand actually changes, where bottlenecks occur and how easily the operation can scale when volumes increase.
For some businesses, that may mean additional fixed capacity. For others, it could involve expandable conveyor systems, scalable robot fleets, flexible processes or a combination of automation and manual support.
If you’re planning a warehouse automation project and want to understand how your normal and peak volumes could affect the system design, feel free to contact the team. You can also explore more articles across the Knowledge Hub for practical guidance on conveyors, robotics, pallet handling and warehouse automation.