The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Product decision · 1996–2004
AutoStore stored inventory in a cube grid with robots on top, not air
Two Norwegians built a dense grid of bins with robots on top, cutting the air warehouses were storing and making AutoStore a global standard.
AutoStore
the move
Hognaland, a Norwegian engineer, kept noticing his warehouses were not storing product so much as storing air: tall racks, wide aisles, and lots of empty space a forklift needed. He set out to store inventory instead of the space around it.
Inspired by the Rubik's Cube, in 1996 he designed a standardised cube grid with storage bins in a tight block. A robot travels on top of the grid, extracts a bin and brings it to a person at a workstation, so the tightest possible packing meets the fastest retrieval. Hatteland commercialised it from 2004 with a lean partner network.
The result is order-fulfillment that packs dozens of bins into the space an aisle would use. By 2023 AutoStore had over 1,600 patents and more than 1,250 systems across 50 countries, and its two founders were inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame for reinventing warehousing.
why it works
- The cube packs inventory floor to ceiling with no aisles.
- Robots bring the goods to the human, not the reverse.
- Dense storage means less paid space for the same stock.
- A standard grid works in most existing buildings.
what transfers
Question the space instead of the task: when the constraint is cubic, redesign the storage geometry so the product, not the walkway, occupies the volume.
what came after
AutoStore went global and became a benchmark for 'goods-to-person' warehouse automation, with competitors copying the grid-and-robot layout. It pioneered an industry that now fills distribution centers for retail, groceries and e-commerce around the world.
references
- AutoStore Founders Are Set to Be Inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame
- AutoStore founders inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.