Most warehouses run out of room long before they run out of building. Look up from the floor and you’ll usually find twenty or thirty feet of empty air above the pick aisles, and a lot of wasted space between the shelves. A good ASRS company will tell you that’s where cube-based systems like AutoStore earn their keep, because they turn that unused volume into storage without requiring a bigger building.
Where Existing Facilities Waste Space
Conventional shelving and pallet racking need aisles, and aisles are dead space. Every few feet of storage requires several feet of walkway so people and equipment can reach the product, and that’s before you count the empty room above head height.
Piece-pick operations are the worst offenders. Small items sit in half-empty bins on wide shelves, picked from by people who walk long distances, and the footprint balloons as SKU counts grow.
Relocating is the usual answer, and it’s expensive. A move means new lease costs, downtime, and rebuilding everything, so densifying the existing building is often a smarter first step when the operation fits.
How AutoStore Packs Inventory
AutoStore stores product in stackable bins inside an aluminum grid. Robots run on top of the grid, lift bins from any position, and deliver them to ports where operators pick items without walking anywhere.
There are no aisles inside the grid. Bins sit directly against each other, so nearly every cubic foot holds inventory, which is the main reason density improves so dramatically compared with traditional shelving.
The system also reshuffles itself. Fast-moving items migrate toward the top where robots reach them quickly, and slow movers settle lower, so the layout stays efficient without anyone reslotting by hand.
Working Around Columns, Mezzanines, and Odd Shapes
Existing buildings are rarely clean rectangles. Columns, sprinkler mains, offices, and equipment pads all interrupt the floor, and any automation you add has to live with them.
The grid is modular, which helps. Designers can leave out cells around columns, shape the footprint around obstacles, and even build around mezzanines, so you don’t need to demolish anything just to fit the system.
A good warehouse automation company will model several layouts before committing. Comparing a few options on paper shows you how much capacity you actually gain, where the ports should sit, and how traffic flows around the grid.
What Density Gains to Expect
Vendors often claim storage capacity several times higher than conventional shelving, and in the right situation that’s realistic. The size of the gain depends on what you’re replacing, how much height you can use, and how well your inventory suits small bins.
Be skeptical of any promise made without a layout, and ask a warehouse automation company to model your actual drawings first. A facility with low ceilings or lots of obstructions will see a smaller improvement than one with high clear height and open floor, and an honest answer requires real drawings.
Think about labor as well as space. Because goods come to the picker, walking time drops sharply and picks per hour rise, so density and productivity often improve together instead of competing.
It Isn’t for Every SKU
AutoStore works best with small to medium items that fit in standard bins. Pallets, oversized goods, and heavy or awkward products belong somewhere else, and trying to force them into the grid wastes the system’s advantage.
Velocity matters too. A product list with a long tail of slow movers is a great fit, while a few extremely high-volume SKUs may be better served by flow racks or conveyors that handle sustained throughput.
Run the numbers on your actual inventory before choosing. An experienced autostore provider will profile your SKUs by size, weight, and order frequency, and will tell you honestly if a hybrid approach makes more sense than putting everything in the grid.
Floors, Ceilings, and Fire Code
The grid needs a reasonably flat, level floor, because robots travel on rails that rest on the structure. Existing slabs sometimes need grinding or repair, and it’s far better to discover that during a survey than after the equipment arrives.
Ceiling height sets how tall the grid can go, and sprinkler layout controls how close it can get to the roof. Fire protection is often the biggest surprise in these projects, since high-density storage can trigger specific suppression and clearance requirements that vary by jurisdiction.
Talk to your insurer and local authority early. Getting sign-off on the fire strategy before design is finalized avoids late redesigns that can add weeks and significant cost.
Combining AutoStore With Racking
Few facilities put everything into a grid. A common approach uses AutoStore for small items and keeps storage racking solutions for pallets, bulk goods, and seasonal inventory, so each product sits in the system that suits it.
This split also helps the building. Reducing the area devoted to piece-pick shelving frees floor space that can become additional pallet racking, staging, or value-added work, and the whole facility works harder without growing. Keep slotting rules simple at first and refine them once real order data shows how items actually move.
Integration between the two matters. Warehouse software needs to know where every item lives and route orders sensibly across both systems, and a good design avoids creating a new bottleneck at the handoff.
Installing in a Live Facility
Most existing buildings can’t stop shipping while a grid goes in. The project needs to be phased, with areas cleared in sequence, inventory temporarily relocated, and the new system commissioned in stages. Ask who handles the electrical and network work as well, since the grid needs power, charging, and reliable data connections.
Plan for the disruption honestly. Staff will work around construction, electrical upgrades, and temporary storage for weeks, so build a schedule that protects peak periods and gives people clear information about what’s changing and when.
If you want help working out whether a cube-based system fits your building and inventory, connect to us and we can review your layout, SKU profile, and constraints before you commit to a design. A short review now can save you from buying more automation than the building can use.
After Go-Live
Expect a tuning period. Inventory needs to settle into the grid, operators need practice at the ports, and software rules often need adjustment once real orders flow through.
Track picks per hour, space utilization, and accuracy against your old baseline. Those numbers show whether the project delivered what was promised, and they point to the next improvement. Revisit capacity every six months, since it’s much easier to plan the next grid expansion before you need it than after you’ve run out of room.
