Haemill Logics cuts costs 30% and quadruples storage capacity with AutoStore warehouse automation

Haemill Logics, a South Korean 3PL provider operating out of Icheon since 2014, serves online retailers, fashion brands, and large-scale retailers across multiple industries. As e-commerce volumes grew, the company's traditional warehousing model struggled to absorb demand volatility. Peak shopping events like Black Friday caused order volumes to spike up to four times the normal rate — a scale that manual operations simply could not absorb without significant overstaffing and space strain. Inefficient inventory management, poor space utilization, and pick-path inefficiencies created fulfillment bottlenecks that degraded order accuracy, slowed delivery times, and eroded customer satisfaction.

Haemill implemented AutoStore's grid-based robotic storage and retrieval system — a form of robotic process automation that replaces manual bin-fetching with autonomous R5 robots navigating a compact cube grid. The brownfield installation deployed 8 R5 robots across 6,079 bins, with 2 CarouselPorts and 1 ConveyorPort serving as human-robot handoff stations. Implementation was handled by Asetec, AutoStore's Korean integration partner. The system was integrated with Haemill's existing NEXOS warehouse management system, enabling real-time stock visibility and automated order picking without replacing incumbent software. The modular design was chosen specifically for its scalability — allowing future grid expansion with minimal operational disruption.

The AutoStore deployment produced measurable gains across space, cost, and throughput. Headline result: the same inventory now occupies one quarter of the previous footprint — a 4x improvement in storage density that unlocks capacity without facility expansion. Additional outcomes:

• 30% improvement in profitability from combined labor cost reductions and efficiency gains
• 15% increase in revenue, attributed to faster order fulfillment and improved customer satisfaction
• 25% rise in orders processed, with picking errors down 10%
• Employee daily steps fell from 20,000 to 8,000, reducing physical strain and turnover risk
• New hires now reach full productivity with minimal training, flattening the onboarding curve

• Grid-based cube storage can compress warehouse footprint by 4x, enabling 3PLs to absorb volume growth without leasing additional space.
• Integrating robotics with an existing WMS — rather than replacing it — reduces implementation risk and accelerates time-to-value in brownfield deployments.
• Reducing dependence on skilled manual pickers directly addresses seasonal staffing volatility; minimal-training throughput is a structural advantage during peak periods.
• Physical ergonomic gains (fewer steps, less strain) improve retention in warehouse roles where turnover is chronically high.
• Plan for expansion at the design stage — AutoStore's modular grid architecture allowed Haemill to target 50%+ future capacity increases without redesigning the installation.