The Challenge
Dental City, a national distributor of dental supplies based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, faced a common challenge in warehouse operations of increasing order volumes without expanding their facility footprint. The company promised same-day shipping for all orders placed by 4:00 PM and guaranteed two-day delivery, which required a highly responsive, efficient warehouse operation. As order volumes grew, associates were walking long distances, operations were congested, and productivity gains were plateauing.
The Solution
Dental City deployed a fully integrated warehouse automation solution using Locus Robotics’ autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), in partnership with Infios’ management system (WMS). With a fleet of over 20 robots — Locus Origin and Locus Vector — they automated both picking and point-to-point transport across two connected warehouses. Together, this enabled enhanced order accuracy, cycle time reduction, improved efficiency, and reduced associate strain.
The Results
Dental City’s partnership with Locus Robotics and Infios transformed its warehouse operations without needing to expand its physical footprint.
- Improved Efficiency: Zone-based picking combined with Locus AMRs allowed orders to be split and fulfilled simultaneously.
- Reduced Labor Strain: Associates no longer walk lengthy round trips or push heavy carts.
- Increased Accuracy: While accuracy was already strong, the system now consistently achieves 99.85% accuracy, aided by clear visual prompts on handheld devices during picking.
- Strong ROI: Dental City forecasted a three-year return on investment with Locus Robotics.
The integrated automation solution enabled rapid scalability, operational excellence, and high employee satisfaction — all while maintaining the company’s promise of fast, accurate delivery.
Most orders are now completed within five minutes.
The Locus Vectors alone save a person a 10-minute round trip each time.