AutoStore Brings 100% Faster Fulfillment to Mack’s Prairie Wings

AutoStore boosts productivity, speed, and accuracy for Mack’s Prairie Wings, without the need for warehouse expansion.

Mack's Prairie Wings is a leading American waterfowl hunting outfitter, operating a retail store and a 9,660 m² (104,000 ft²) distribution center in Stuttgart, Arkansas. Faced with rapid e-commerce growth, expanding product range, and increasing operational demands, Mack's partnered with AutoStore, empowered by KPI Solutions, to dramatically improve their fulfillment capabilities.

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The Challenge: Improve Efficiency and Speed

Mack's Prairie Wings faced significant operational challenges as their e-commerce business surged. The rapid growth in online orders, coupled with an expanding product range, pushed their existing manual processes to the limit. With over 60,000 Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), ranging from heavy deer stands to small jewelry items, Mack's struggled to maintain efficiency in their distribution center. Their diverse product mix created operational bottlenecks and placed considerable strain on their workforce, highlighting the need for a more robust fulfillment solution.

As order volumes continued to climb, Mack's recognized the need to optimize their distribution center's capacity, increase overall operational efficiency, and dramatically improve fulfillment speed. They wanted a scalable, automated solution that could meet current demand and accommodate future growth. Additionally, Mack's shipment of regulated, high-value items required a system capable of assigning products with specific compliance requirements to designated pickers, adding another layer of complexity to their fulfillment needs.

The Solution: Accelerating Operations with AutoStore

To address their challenges, Mack's Prairie Wings implemented a cube-based AutoStore system designed for scalable high-density storage and rapid order fulfillment. Key components of the system are 18 Robots, 34,000 Bins, and 4 Workstations (or Ports) for both picking and replenishment. The system integrates smoothly with Mack's existing Warehouse Management System, RF-SMART, to ensure real-time inventory data updates across their environment.

With AutoStore at the heart of their distribution center, Mack's significantly enhanced their fulfillment speeds. E-commerce orders that previously took days to process are now fulfilled within hours. The reliability and uptime of AutoStore's Robots ensure that Mack's can efficiently manage demand spikes, particularly during peak periods, and the system’s cube-based design gives Mack’s the flexibility to scale operations as the business continues to grow, without disruption.

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Key Benefits: Efficient, Fast, and Productive

The implementation of AutoStore's automated storage and retrieval system has delivered transformative improvements across Mack's Prairie Wings' operations, as highlighted by Debbie Pinckard, Chief Financial Officer: "One of the things we love about AutoStore is that the Robots don't call in sick. They can run without the lights on. We no longer have a second shift — the Robots are our second shift." These improvements include:

• Dramatically faster order fulfillment: Order processing times have been reduced from days to hours.
• Increased productivity: Hundreds of orders are now picked in an hour with only 2 workers, compared to the previous need for 15 pickers working several hours.
• Same-day shipping: Orders placed before 1 PM can now be shipped the same day.
• Improved order accuracy: The system has significantly reduced errors, eliminating the need for frequent troubleshooting and order corrections.
• Efficient omnichannel replenishment: AutoStore enables auto-replenishment from the warehouse to the attached retail store, maintaining accurate stock levels across channels.
• Space optimization: The system has helped Mack's avoid a costly warehouse expansion by using the available space more densely.
• Scalability for future growth: AutoStore's modular design supports Mack’s future growth, allowing for expansion without disruption as operational needs evolve.

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From Reactive to Proactive Fulfillment

The implementation of AutoStore allows Mack’s Prairie Wings to meet the challenges of rapid e-commerce growth head-on. As Debbie Pinckard, Chief Financial Officer, explains, "When Covid hit, our website exploded. 80% of our business was online, and we didn't have the manpower to keep up with it." AutoStore's solution addressed that challenge and also positioned the company for future success.

With AutoStore, Mack's Prairie Wings removed their bottlenecks, practically eliminated picking errors, and significantly reduced labor needs.

Project Specifications

• Installation type: Brownfield (Existing site)
• Robots: 18 R5 Robots
• Workstations (Ports): 4 Ports
• Bins: 34,000 Bins
• WMS: RF-SMART
• Integrated technology: KPI Kommand AS Module, NetSuite
• Integration partner: KPI Solutions