Kenco is tripling its Innovation Lab from 10,000 to 30,000 square feet at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, headquarters, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony scheduled for Sept. 10 will mark the opening of the expanded facility. The lab will house at least 30 types of robots spanning more than a dozen different technologies. The expansion is designed to let the third-party logistics provider test integrated, multi-robot systems rather than isolated point solutions — a shift the company says reduces deployment risk for customers.

The move comes as warehouse automation adoption has accelerated across the logistics industry, driven in part by persistent labor availability challenges in distribution and fulfillment operations. Third-party logistics providers like Kenco occupy a distinctive position in that trend: they must deploy automation across many different customers' inventories and workflows rather than a single standardized operation, which makes flexibility and rigorous pre-deployment testing especially valuable.

Ainsley Williams, Vice President of Automation and Innovation at Kenco, said the original 10,000-square-foot lab, which launched in 2015, simply ran out of room. "In a 10,000-square-foot space, you can really gobble it up really quickly with point solutions and technologies," Williams said. "We realized that if we had a bigger footprint, we could test more technologies as they work together in a system."

The lab's first major showcase will be an end-to-end automated trailer unloading workflow. One robot will unload pallets directly from tractor trailers at the dock; a second robot will transport those pallets deeper into the building; and a third will depalletize the cases. All systems will be orchestrated by Gray Matter software, with AutoStore and GrayOrange's HiCLiME among the platforms on the floor. The goal, Williams said, is a near-lights-out process visible from a conference room with a gallery view overlooking the floor. Trailer unloading is consistently cited by operators as one of the most physically demanding warehouse jobs, which is why dock-side automation has become a focal point for robotics vendors.

"A failed test in a lab is still a successful test in a lab because you wanted to watch it fail. That's kind of the purpose of a lab — to push it to failure. That's not the purpose of production." — Ainsley Williams, VP of Automation and Innovation, Kenco

The additional square footage also unlocks vertical testing that the old lab could not accommodate — including cycle-counting towers that travel up and down warehouse aisles — reflecting an industry shift toward high-bay automation as floor space grows scarce. Williams noted that a single palletizing or depalletizing robot would have consumed virtually the entire previous lab on its own.

One project Williams singled out as particularly high-impact is random mixed-SKU pallet building. Current robotic palletizing solutions require cases to arrive in a precise sequence, a constraint that works for automated storage and retrieval systems but is impractical for most 3PL environments. "That is going to unlock a huge opportunity for 3PLs and supply chain in general, is to alleviate the need for sequencing," Williams said, adding that solving the sequencing problem opens pallet-build automation to warehouses measuring 800,000 square feet or more.

Williams stressed that the lab is deliberately vendor-neutral. Kenco operates roughly 140 distribution centers and also manages material handling equipment — including leased forklifts — and maintenance at those sites, giving it direct skin in the game when selecting technology. Because Kenco both selects and operates the automation it recommends, Williams argued the company has a structural incentive to vet tools rigorously before any customer production rollout. Attendees at the Sept. 10 ribbon-cutting will include Kenco operations staff, suppliers, local customers, politicians, local college students, and media — a guest list that reflects the lab's dual role as both a technology testing ground and a local workforce and community touchpoint.

Source: FreightWaves