Customer Success Story

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wharehouse robotics case study

Customer Success Story

E-Commerce Retailer Increases Orders Fulfilled by 400% In Month One

Situation at McDonald

McDonald’s core B2B wholesale restaurant equipment and supplies business was growing at a good pace when they started having success selling direct to consumers in online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and others. Their core had always been their B2B e-commerce website and their direct sales team that managed restaurant accounts across the country. By the start of 2020, the increase in sales volume driven by the online marketplaces meant how they were doing business would have to change to keep up with demand.

Eugene Khorosh, Founder and President of McDonald, was a seasoned entrepreneur who saw the growing online sales as a huge opportunity. Knowing they couldn’t continue to meet increasing order demand by fulfilling out of the Brooklyn warehouse, he planned to build out a new greenfield warehouse in Philadelphia. He wanted the new warehouse to be scalable and resilient – and he knew he’d want to leverage robotic automation to get the most productivity possible out of the new space.

Eugene chose Prime Robotics after spending a lot of time with their team – they were transparent from the start and outlined a plan to optimize virtually every warehouse process.

“I leaned on the Prime team for the robot and software expertise they brought to the table – they are my automation partner for the long haul. I don’t have a large tech department or a robotics expert, so Prime Robotic’s live 24/7 customer support is critical – I know they’ve got my back,” says Eugene Khorosh, McDonald Founder and President.

Prime’s MobileShelf automation solution went live at the new Philadelphia warehouse just weeks before COVID hit. By April, online order volume had jumped 400%, including many SKUs they rarely sold in the three months prior.

MobileShelf - warehouse robotic automation

The fastest robotic picking AMR for warehouses today

  • Picker can make 300-350 picks per hour
  • Picker can remain stationary as shelf comes to them at Pick Station
  • Training is fast and it’s easy to operate
See MobileShelf in Action

Implementation Results

McDonald can scale capacity at their warehouse on demand with current Prime Robotics system without any further automation investment

At the new facility in Philadelphia, with the only employee hired before the COVID lockdown, Eugene began filling orders. With the new facility’s automation system up and running, he quickly shifted the majority of order volume from Brooklyn. With MobileShelf robots and one employee, the new facility quickly began filling up to 1,000 orders a day.

“Just as I was opening a new warehouse in Philly and turning the on the Prime Robotics system, COVID hit. Sales went through the roof and I couldn’t hire workers. In weeks we scaled Philly effortlessly from 0 to 1,000 orders a day. When you consider the reasonable cost and how easy it was to deploy, everyone should do it.”

Prime’s system is flexible to interface with McDonald’s order management system (OMS), SellerCloud, and SAP. This enabled the printing of shipping labels right at the Pick Station. There is a conveyor at the end of the Pick System to take the ready-to-ship packages to the shipping dock.

Today Eugene’s a big fan of Prime Robotics’ insightful reports. “The daily report generated is one of the emails I open every morning – it’s simple and clear and it not only tells me how the robots are doing, but it also gives me the pulse of the Philly operation.”

McDonald is now capable of scaling operations to process up to 3,000 orders a day if they were to move to a 24-hour workday.

Phase 2 – What’s Next at McDonald

McDonald is now preparing for Phase 2 when they will deploy the MobilePallet. The MobilePallet can move up to 3,200 lbs. This allows the automating of receiving pallets at the truck dock and storage of large, palleted, slower selling items. Because all of the robots are part of one seamless system, they can operate in orchestration, with inventory able to be moved to the Pick Station via MobileShelf or MobilePallet to fulfill orders.

“If I were asked why I chose Prime Robotics, I would say, for the simplicity, affordability, and the ease of integration. But after working with them, I know they’ve got my back – their team is monitoring each one of our robots 24/7, and can fix an issue remotely before it ever becomes a problem.”

“It just works – we know this system is reliable.”

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Nate Aswege
V.P., Sales & Marketing