Warehouse Humanoids · Part of The Humanoid Group

Live Warehouse Pilots

A pilot should answer a specific question about your operation while orders keep flowing. This guide covers writing that question, choosing a representative zone, preparing the site with your integrator and timing the trial around peak season.

By Chloe Dubois · Updated

Write the question the pilot must answer

Pilots drift when nobody has agreed what success means. Before any robot arrives, write one or two questions the trial must settle, such as whether the robots can sustain your normal hourly volume in one zone, or how much supervision they need. For each question, name the measure, how it will be collected, the baseline from the same zone without robots, and the result that would justify the next step. Agree the stop conditions as well, such as repeated service failures or a safety incident. Keep the scope narrow enough that a failure stays contained, but realistic enough that the result says something about the full operation.

Choose a zone that represents real work

The easiest area is rarely the most informative. A quiet corner with clean pallets and few people will flatter any robot. Pick a zone whose flows, product mix and traffic resemble the area you would automate at scale, but where you can fall back to manual work within the shift if the robots stop. A multiple case study of omni-channel retailers by Kembro and Norrman found warehouses handling flows that are growing in number, variety and frequency, and stressed accurate master data when investing in automation. Bring that variety into the pilot zone, including returns and awkward items, rather than filtering it out to make the numbers look better.

Prepare the site with your integrator

Even a trial needs the same site preparation as a full deployment. A3 describes ANSI/A3 R15.08-2-2023 as setting requirements for integrating, configuring and customising an industrial mobile robot or a fleet into a site, including interactions with workstations, charging stations and other equipment. Use that scope as a checklist for the pilot: where robots charge, how they meet conveyors or pick stations, whether wireless coverage holds up in the zone and what happens when a fire door closes. Brief everyone who works nearby, including agency staff and drivers, and give them a simple way to report problems while the trial runs.

Keep peak season out of the trial window

Running a first trial into your busiest weeks puts both the result and your customers at risk. Plan the pilot so that it ends, and the decision is taken, before peak preparation starts, then treat peak as a later test once the system has proved itself. If a trial must overlap a busy period, keep the manual fallback staffed and agree with the supplier how quickly an engineer will attend. Collect data across at least one complete weekly cycle, because Monday backlogs and weekend replenishment can tell a different story from a mid-week sample. Report the interventions alongside the successes, so the next decision rests on evidence.

Sources and further reading

Common questions

How long should a warehouse robot pilot run?

Long enough to cover your normal weekly pattern, with enough repeat cycles to see whether early problems fade or persist. Set the length from the questions you need answered rather than from the supplier's standard offer, and agree an end date before you start.

Who pays for a warehouse robot pilot?

Arrangements vary. Some suppliers charge for pilots, some credit the fee against a later order and some share the cost. Whatever the deal, put the success measures, data ownership, removal terms and any purchase commitment in writing before the robots arrive.

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