Japanese tool wholesaler Trusco Nakayama has switched on an Exotec Skypod system inside its newest and largest warehouse, a site of nearly 90,000 sqm near Nagoya on Honshu island. It is the company’s 29th distribution centre, added to support growth, widen its range and speed up deliveries. Local partner IHI Logistics & Machinery Corporation handled the integration.
Inside the deployment
The installation runs 31,075 bin locations, 37 robots and four picking stations. That capacity matters, because Trusco Nakayama plans to push its catalogue from 630,000 stock references to more than one million. Handling that kind of assortment by hand is not realistic. The goods-to-person setup brings inventory to fixed picking stations rather than sending staff walking the aisles.
The demand behind the robots
Exotec framed the move around a familiar pressure: a constantly expanding product range and rising online orders. The wholesaler needs to serve a wider variety of professional tools while holding onto speed and accuracy. As Trusco scales toward a million SKUs, the Nagoya hub becomes a test of how far shuttle-based automation can stretch a single site’s throughput.
