In 2025, WEG Electric Corp., a manufacturer and supplier of electrical and electronic equipment, was feeling a bit squeezed at its U.S. headquarters in Duluth, Georgia. The facility houses engineering and sales in addition to the company’s distribution operations, and things were getting tight, particularly on the distribution side. WEG’s small-parts inventory—think electric motors, controls, panels, generators, and variable frequency drives—had grown over the years and the growth showed no signs of slowing. And that was creating challenges in storing and managing material within the existing warehouse footprint.
Building out was not an option, but automation was, so WEG began looking for a solution that could increase storage density, improve operational efficiency, and reduce strain on the order fulfillment process—which at the time was a manual workflow involving paper pick lists and forklifts.
Its search led it to the AutoStore automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS), a high-density vertical storage system that can hold thousands of small items. Designed to optimize warehouse storage space, the system has the dual advantages of minimizing square footage needed and—because robots retrieve items and deliver them to ergonomic workstations—reducing the need for forklifts and order picker travel.
SCALING TO FIT
Once the decision was made, WEG Electric turned to automated storage solutions specialist (and global AutoStore partner) Kardex to install and integrate an AutoStore at the Duluth facility. The AutoStore system supplied by Kardex consists of a high-density grid supporting 13,938 storage bins, seven R5 AutoStore robots, and three picking ports or workstations (two CarouselPorts for picking and one ConveyorPort for inbound inventory).
The system has the potential to grow even larger in the future. Kardex notes that the AutoStore’s modular architecture makes it easily scalable: As business grows, WEG can simply add more robots, ports, or storage to the system.
WEG also opted to implement the Kardex FulfillX warehouse execution system (WES) to orchestrate the flow of thousands of small parts in the AS/RS. Integrated with the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, the FulFillX WES now manages inventory storage, order sequencing, and system workflows in real time, helping ensure that inbound, storage, and outbound processes operate efficiently together.
MULTIPLE BENEFITS
Since partnering with Kardex to deploy the AutoStore solution, WEG has seen small-parts picking speeds double and is able to handle higher order volumes while providing a reliable service. The Duluth facility has also been able to redeploy six employees from manual picking tasks to higher-value-added activities and has reduced the need for forklifts for picking and putaway.
The supplier has seen other benefits as well: For example, by centralizing small-parts storage in the AutoStore grid, WEG freed up warehouse space for pallet storage and other inventory. On top of that, the system’s controlled storage environment and software-driven inventory tracking have improved accuracy and visibility across the operation.
Company leaders say the project has produced the results they were looking for. “AutoStore [has strengthened] our distribution capabilities by increasing responsiveness, supporting scalable growth, and enabling faster fulfillment across our U.S. network,” Scott Campbell, logistics manager at WEG Electric, said in a press release. “It has enabled us to free up floor space and improve inventory accuracy, and [it has] given us the ability to store more SKUs [stock-keeping units] without expanding the physical warehouse footprint.”
