IN Brief:
- Nowaste Logistics is the first operator to install AutoStore’s AutoCase technology.
- The system moves inbound apparel cartons into AutoStore instead of relying on pallet buffer storage before fulfilment.
- Testing across different carton types and sizes will take place before the installation enters full operation.
Nowaste Logistics has become the first warehouse operator to install AutoStore’s AutoCase technology, using the system to automate the storage of inbound apparel cartons before they enter outbound fulfilment. Swisslog supplied and integrated the installation, which was fitted during the summer and will now be tested with different carton types and sizes before full operation begins.
The application addresses a stage of warehouse flow that can remain manual even when downstream storage and picking are highly automated. Nowaste receives large quantities of apparel from Asia in cartons, often several weeks before the relevant selling season starts. Inventory then needs to remain available throughout a season that can last for as long as six months.
Under the current process, cartons are buffer-stored on pallets in pallet racking before being replenished or decanted into the site’s AutoStore system as stock is required. That creates several additional handling steps between receiving and automated fulfilment, including pallet movement, storage, retrieval, and transfer of individual stock into the automated system.
AutoCase is designed to remove part of that intermediate process. Incoming cartons can be placed directly into the AutoStore system and later retrieved either as complete cases for shipment or routed to a picking station where individual items are removed for customer orders. The case buffer and each-level fulfilment process can therefore use the same storage environment rather than separate pallet and bin stages.
The design extends AutoStore beyond the bin-based goods-to-person applications with which the platform is most closely associated. AutoStore launched AutoCase during its autumn 2025 product programme, adding automated case injection and extraction to a system already widely used for dense storage and order picking.
Apparel logistics gives the first installation a demanding operating profile. Seasonal collections arrive in advance, carton sizes can vary by supplier and product, and inventory has to remain available over several months while order patterns change. A system positioned immediately behind inbound receiving therefore has to handle real packaging variation rather than a tightly controlled presentation of identical loads.
The forthcoming test phase is intended to establish that capability across different carton formats and dimensions. Variability is an important qualification point because warehouse automation can perform strongly with standardised loads but become more difficult when cases differ in size, quality, weight distribution, labels, or condition. Exceptions that repeatedly require manual intervention can quickly offset the handling reduction promised by the automated process.
Nowaste said the existing pallet-buffer method involves extensive manual work. Patrik Johnfors, Head of Solution Design & Implementation at Nowaste Logistics, said: “AutoCase™ is a solution that is as simple as it is ingenious. It eliminates time-consuming manual work and increases efficiency, speed, and storage density in one of our highly automated warehouses.”
The commercial case will depend on how those claims translate into measurable utilisation, labour reduction, and storage performance. Pallet buffering is comparatively simple and flexible, so an automated alternative must earn back additional equipment and integration costs through reduced touches, denser storage, faster flow, avoided floor space, or some combination of those factors.
Neither Nowaste nor Swisslog has disclosed the installation cost, throughput, storage capacity, projected payback, or expected labour saving. The first deployment should therefore be treated as an operating test rather than evidence that automated case buffering is already economically superior across a broad range of warehouse environments.
The installation also reflects a wider trend in intralogistics towards expanding automation across the interfaces between established systems. Storage, goods-to-person picking, conveyors, sortation, packing, and warehouse software are already heavily automated in many large facilities, while inbound buffering can still involve pallets and manual moves. Removing one of those boundaries can improve flow without replacing the core storage system already in place.
That makes compatibility with existing AutoStore operations central to the proposition. Operators that already use the platform may be able to extend automation into case buffering without installing a completely separate automated storage technology, although actual integration requirements will vary by building, case profile, controls architecture, and upstream receiving process.
Giulia Colombi, Swisslog CEO EMEA, said the installation expands the range of workflows that can be automated within AutoStore. The technology still has to prove itself against live inbound variation, and the testing now under way will be more informative than the first-installation label alone.
If the system handles mixed cartons reliably, Nowaste will have removed a manual stage between inbound receiving and automated fulfilment in a warehouse where inventory can sit for months before final demand is known. If exception rates remain high, the process may still require enough manual handling to limit the benefit. Full operation will provide the first practical evidence of how far case handling can be absorbed into the AutoStore architecture rather than managed alongside it.
