Imagine you’ve bought a computer to use at home. It functions well for the first few years, but gradually its performance level starts to decline as it becomes incompatible with new programs. You make enquiries and realise the suppliers no longer manufacture the components you require to restore it to its factory setting. You’re left with no choice but to buy a new one.
This can also be the reality of buying a sortation system for your distribution centre – after a few years of wear and tear, the spare parts you require are not available, long rendered obsolete.
Your supplier spoke about a likely 20-year life-cycle, but it’s barely been ten years and you’re looking for a replacement system.
This example illustrates how important it is to invest in high quality and solid design, delivered to you by a reliable partner committed to keeping your system live.
The system design, using the best components on the market, is robust, but in the event of wear and tear, the supplier can provide spare parts – if not an identical replacement, then a retrofit that will fulfil your requirements.
For a well-designed, high-quality sortation system, you’ll be paying a CAPEX in a higher price range than for ordinary systems, but over the course of the life-cycle, you’ll soon recoup your investments thanks to a significantly lower OPEX.
For example, investing in a system that primarily uses 3mm-thick steel conveyor sections will result in a considerably reduced demand for costly replacement sections.
Quickly over the course of the life-cycle, the cost of replacing cheaper options components will mount up, sending the OPEX skywards. Meanwhile, continuing with the example above, the purchaser of the high-quality system can expect all the steel sections to last the duration of the 20-year life-cycle.
But the truth is there is almost ‘everlasting life’, as there is a documented case of a 1993 system still being used, where the 3mm-thick steel has only worn down by just one millimetre.
Furthermore, when you invest in a supplier offering lifetime commitment, it won’t tell you ten years later it cannot provide a one-to-one replacement part.
If the part is no longer available, which is unlikely, it will design a retrofit part: firmware or software.
Sometimes, changes will need to be made to the system – add-ons, an expansion or a complete overhaul – to adapt to new market conditions, such as a new shape of parcel or new type of label.
In all such cases, a dedicated system supplier will be able to deliver solutions to extend the life-cycle and keep the OPEX low.
Envisaging a modern sortation system’s life-cycle performance at the negotiating table is difficult, unless the supplier has a demonstrated track record of long-lasting relationships.
When a Finnish postal carrier installed a new sortation system in 1996 – which its provider promised, with its full support, would maintain a high performance level for at least a 20-year life-cycle – few thought it would still be running optimally in 2024.
And it’s not even the oldest still in operation. In Sweden a sortation system belonging to a warehouse operator has been running strong since 1986.
Examples like these demonstrate that giving careful consideration to the likely costs of a high quality system over the duration of its life-cycle makes good sense financially.
Certainly, a track record like this gives committed suppliers an advantage – particularly in light of the increasingly quick turnover of inferior systems that barely last more than five to ten years.
It can be tempting to be dazzled by the allure of a low CAPEX – strategic buyers recruited to quickly turn around a company’s fortunes won’t be swayed by the promise of the OPEX working out cheaper over a life-cycle.
Nevertheless, system providers need to stress the continuance, durability and ESG merits of their sortation solutions in talks with the strategic buyer on the CEP side, as these points will be passed on to the ultimate decision maker, the board of directors.
Beyond economic and environmental benefits, an enduring partnership with a committed system provider removes the CEP operator’s operational headache of constantly focusing on keeping the system alive.
As long as the CEP operator follows the recommendations regarding cleaning and necessary adjustments, the system provider can, in partnership with the operator, use preventive maintenance to give the system the best possible working conditions.
The provider can monitor all levels of the system – electrical, mechanical, controls, the server and software – to ensure the sortation system has no break-down due to failures. Instead, the system will be corrected in good time.
Here lies the true value of such a partnership because if a wheel breaks or a section crashes, this could bring all sortation to a halt for hours, a day or longer.
And if that day is the one before Black Friday or during the build-up to Christmas, that’s a huge problem. It’ll make choosing a guaranteed reliable system – along with what is effectively a lifetime insurance against such a breakdown – look like an extremely wise investment.
It is exactly this kind of workhouse reliability that requires smart investment by the CEP operator. As is commonly said in the industry: “Stuff has to work.”
The result is reduced worry. CEP operators that prioritise future-proof, high-quality design over cheap cost can be confident their capacity can handle peaks like Black Friday – and very, very rarely, if ever, experience a breakdown.
Intelligent design will enable the distribution centre to evolve. The system provider’s design may even enable it to expand because it has prioritised functionality, adaptability and longevity.
Not only will the system be able to adapt to innovations such as automation, AI and Last Mile advances, but it will be able to integrate customers’ specific needs for technology.
Such a sortation system lifetime extension project in Sweden was recently compared to switching a Ford Model T for a Mustang Mach E.
The original system, a chain sorter, was delivered in 1986, so it was high time for an upgrade of its electrical component and control.
Its 1980s-era SCADA came complete with flashing LED lights on the panel of an aluminium cabinet. It will now give way to a TIA platform (Totally Integrated Automation) with easy-to-view monitors. The upgrade can easily add another 10-15 years to the system’s life-cycle.
For the strategic buyer, selecting the original system provider to oversee the upgrade was an easy decision, as he was also responsible for the purchase in 1986.
Since then, he has witnessed the committed support of the system provider first-hand.
The system’s endurance underlines the importance of a CEP operator having a strong partnership with the system provider – a relationship so close it has become a family affair.
