Traditional warehousing software, despite evolving, has fallen short in delivering intelligent, user-friendly, and cost-effective solutions. Burdened with decades of technical liabilities, its journey towards addressing present, let alone future, warehousing demands appears formidable.

Efficient warehouse management plays a pivotal role in achieving core business objectives. Fulfilld offers a complete software and hardware package, delivering instantaneous visibility into warehouse operations and ready-to-use intelligent technology to enhance efficiency. Through the location-aware, AI-driven technology, and orchestration capabilities of system-directed tasks between human and connected systems, Fulfilld optimizes core warehousing operations and reduces wasted warehouse worker activity by 40%; improves inventory accuracy; optimizes product placement; and improves warehouse worker efficiencies by 80% when compared to WMS systems that don’t offer location guidance.

As Michael Pytel Co-Founder & CTO of Fulfilld explains, “For example, in the context of a typical half-million-square-foot warehouse featuring 52 aisles, 50,000 products, and numerous storage bins, the challenge of determining optimal product placement for maximum efficiency in inbound and outbound operations is formidable. Warehouses often employ a categorization strategy, such as grouping all light bulbs together, but this method may not be suitable when considering factors like order volume, personnel, equipment, and robotics. Fulfilld's approach encompasses converting CAD drawings, training the computer model, and utilizing ant-colony optimization to simulate various routes for both humans and vehicles. By creating a digital twin of the warehouse, Fulfilld assists customers in minimizing unnecessary travel, thereby enhancing their warehouse operations. We want to harness computational power to suggest the most efficient product placements within warehouses, reducing travel distances for vehicles, employees, and robots which results in improved pick efficiency and enhanced overall warehouse performance.”

 What’s different about Fulfilld?

Fullfilld is an early-stage, venture-backed company, with founders boasting 20 years of experience developing and implementing enterprise software and hardware solutions within and around the SAP-ecosystem. The company separates itself from other WMS players with the following differentiators:

AI-enabled productivity: Fulfilld’s system-directed task management tools eliminate the need for lengthy onboarding and training. New employees are productive from day one.

Business-critical visibility: Intuitive dashboard functionality and embedded analytics provide at-a-glance insight into performance metrics and potential problems that impact the business.

Low total cost of ownership: Bundled hardware and software package, cloud-based SaaS platform, simple subscription pricing, and reliable support reduces TCO by as much as 50%.

Simple Integration: Fulfilld can integrate with existing SAP ERP and S/4HANA environments to maximize functionality with little involvement from IT.

Rapid Development: Features like wizard-based data conversion and setup tools allow customers to install, configure, integrate, and launch Fulfilld in as little as 90 days, instead of months or years.

2:1 Hardware and Software: Fulfilld doubles optimization and orchestration capabilities with AI-enabled software and handheld scanner hardware that are ready to implement out of the box.

User-first functionality: Fulfilld’s user-first engagement strategy empowers even new users to complete more tasks in less time and adopt new tools and technology with confidence.

Operating in the SAP Ecosystem

While SAP has a top-tier warehouse management product, Fulfilld's solutions harness artificial intelligence, computer models, and machine learning. Their cutting-edge solutions not only provide recommendations but also empower human operators to make informed decisions by offering the flexibility to accept or modify these suggestions.

Fulfilld's solutions seamlessly integrate with ERP systems, enhancing functionality through AI assistance. Integration with SAP allows Fulfilld to access vital data such as sales orders and purchase orders. The computer model generates a product placement score, which is then relayed to SAP, providing clear guidance to warehouse staff regarding the optimal storage locations for each product. The visualization demonstrates the model's continuous assessment of different placements' effects on travel distances and times. The model employs a genetic algorithm, iterating through multiple versions and generations to determine the most optimal solutions.

“Fulfilld’s solutions center around creating a digital twin of the warehouse, enabling customers to simulate changes and apply them virtually. This approach offers a significant advantage over the traditional method, where warehouse managers would physically move products, often resulting in costly mistakes. Fulfilld’s computer model takes variables like employee count and equipment into account to provide accurate simulations,” Pytel comments.

Intelligent Product Portfolio

The two core products that Fulfilld offers are as follows:

Intelligent Warehouse: Fulfilld's unique WMS, equipped with location-aware capabilities, gathers data as warehouse employees complete tasks, utilizing the ERP system, and external systems, funneling it into an orchestration engine. This integrated hardware and software package bridges knowledge gaps by equipping workers with dynamic, location-based schedules, ensuring they always have clarity on their next task and the most optimal approach to completing it. With Fulfilld's proprietary routing algorithms, workers can respond to task assignments and fulfillment updates instantly, seamlessly interfacing with third-party systems for streamlined process coordination. With the digital twin of the warehouse, Fulfilld can conduct simulations for both incoming and outgoing orders which provide valuable recommendations for optimizing product placements, resulting in reduced travel time, enhanced picking and putting efficiency, and overall warehouse operation improvement. This approach allows for warehouse setup optimization before any physical changes are implemented.

Intelligent Slotting: Fulfilld's Intelligent Slotting solution employs Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms to determine the ideal placement of products, thereby minimizing wasted labor efforts in the warehouse with maximum efficiency. It utilizes Google Cloud Platform's Vertex AI to identify the most efficient actions. Pytel emphasizes, “What sets Fulfilld apart from other slotting solutions is its utilization of a digital twin that simulates the physical world in a virtual environment, historical data, and, if available,  future activity like sales forecasts, ensuring the most precise and accurate product placement. The slotting tool is particularly beneficial due to its additive nature, presenting capabilities that SAP currently lacks. It complements existing systems, incorporating AI-driven features that differentiate it from SAP's offerings. Importantly, it holds relevance for every SAP customer engaged in manufacturing and warehouse management.”

Fulfilld is also developing a third product called "intelligent labor planning," which will allow customers to simulate workforce changes using AI and ML, offering additional optimization opportunities. In an industry characterized by high employee turnover, simplifying workforce planning is crucial. The company's application is designed to make recommendations for optimizing warehouse operations, ensuring efficiency and cost savings with detailed reporting to track recommended changes against actual implementation, enabling customers to assess realized savings and continually improve their warehouse operations. This feature extends to multi-warehouse scenarios.

Case Study

Fulfilld is engaged in a co-branded initiative with Pepsi, one of their customers using their slotting product along with Honeywell, an industrial parts manufacturer, utilizing their slotting product. Additionally, they have partnered with Tyson Foods, a global food production company, to deploy their Warehouse Management System (WMS) at a bacon production facility. Tyson Foods opted for their WMS due to its standout feature: a highly effective mobile interface.

What it means for SAPinsiders

Explore AI-Driven Warehouse Management Solutions: Companies should consider implementing AI-assisted warehouse management solutions if they are in the manufacturing or wholesale distribution sector and use SAP S/4HANA or S/4HANA Cloud. These solutions can help optimize warehouse operations by simulating changes, enhancing efficiency, and potentially saving costs.

Prioritize Mobile Interface and Indoor Navigation: If companies are evaluating warehouse management solutions, they should prioritize those with advanced mobile interfaces and indoor navigation capabilities. These features can significantly improve the organization of warehouse worker activities, reduce travel distances, and enhance overall productivity.

Continuous Monitoring and Reporting: Organizations should implement a system that allows for continuous monitoring and reporting of recommended changes versus actual implementation. This will help in tracking and assessing realized savings, identify areas for improvement, and ensure warehouse operations remain optimized over time.

Reduce the Risk of Resource Turnover: Labor planning and slotting decisions are typically made at a site level by one or two resources. Those resources are basing their decisions on experience and tenure. When using Machine Learning, Fulfilld can learn from decisions made in the past, offer new suggestions, and reduce the risk of resource turnover. By leveraging an AI-assisted warehouse management application we can offer more consistent warehouse operations even when people leave an organization.