The Interview. Rick Day of Lucas Systems

Lucas Systems helps companies create a dynamic warehouse, enabling distribution centres to compete more effectively under ever-changing market conditions. We harness the power of data with AI, machine learning, speech recognition, and optimisation models to provide operational agility and improved distribution centre performance.

Rick Day, Client Director, EMEA at Lucas Systems speaks to Warehouse & Logistics News.

Tell us how Lucas Systems are growing in the UK

We continue to grow our presence in the U.K. as we settle into the new, larger office space in Bracknell we moved to last year. As we continue to attract new customers and opportunities, we plan to further expand the team to match our increasing reach.

For more than 25 years, Lucas Systems has helped hundreds of companies transform their distribution centre operations using AI, smart software, and voice. What’s really fuelling our growth is the continuing evolution of our solutions into optimisation engines that can easily integrate with other products, automation, or processes in the warehouse to bring an even higher level of operational efficiency and performance.

What makes Lucas Systems unique in your industry?

Our vision is having the ability to create a warehouse network that can quickly, and cost efficiently respond to changes in supply, demand, and resources, by continuously self-optimising operations and providing operational data visibility. Distribution needs to help enable growth through adaptive operations and an empowered workforce, with things like having the right level of technology, smarts, and AI to support people. Those sorts of things drive cost resiliency and sustainability no matter what circumstances might change.

Specifically, Lucas Dynamic Work Optimisation algorithms are unique in that we are the only company to dynamically batch and optimise pick paths at the point the user requests work. In addition, our AI-based algorithms dynamically evaluate order priority, location, travel distance, product attributes, and other factors to create the optimum assignment. Our Jennifer software is the intelligence that dynamically optimises and learns, evaluating millions of potential combinations to determine the “best match” or grouping of work. That’s powerful when it comes to the orchestration and optimisation of picking functions, order fulfilment, loading, slotting, and others.

How future-proof and flexible are your solutions?

It’s less about futureproofing because you honestly never know what the future might bring. To us, it’s more about being as agile, adaptable, flexible, and resilient as you possibly can be to deal with anything.

It’s about software automation and the benefits of change and flexibility this approach brings, as opposed to a more static approach. As a foundation, our solutions offer AI-powered intelligence that optimises and orchestrates warehouse operations. We help you improve productivity, increase accuracy, and increase throughput. Depending on the maturity level of your warehouse, you just might want to optimise your people right now or gain further benefits from your current WMS. We can do that. But in the future, you may want to plug in AMRs. Maybe add an ASRS if your operations evolve. Lucas solutions are built for fast integration and deployment. You can easily drop in new automation like AMRs, AGVs, and ASRS with the least disruption.

You might not be ready for automation today. When you want to add more levels of automation in the future, this is a platform that will support those.

What new services/solutions are you offering for 2025?

In recent months, we’ve been rolling out what we call dynamically driven technologies, all designed to help warehouse operators adapt quickly to changing operational conditions and shifts in demand. One example is our Dynamic Slotting product, which has been well-received in the market. What I love about it is how it simplifies re-slotting by offering in-the-moment recommendations powered by AI.

This year, we’ve added powerful algorithms and digital twin mapping to the mix, which are key upgrades for our next-generation Dynamic Work Optimisation (DWO) solution. These enhancements allow us to consider real-time complexities—like order priorities, SKU clustering, proximity, and warehouse layout—to deliver even better performance.

The new software can reduce the number of steps workers take by up to 50%. It optimises pick paths to minimise travel time and now even takes forklifts and cherry pickers into account. Details like these really make a difference, and it’s rewarding to see how they positively impact operations.

What are the biggest challenges facing Lucas Systems and your industry?

Every single customer I’m meeting is giving me the same challenge, and it’s how do we reduce our cost of sale, mainly around labour and facility operations. The two biggest concerns I keep hearing from customers and prospects are the struggle to find skilled labour and the rising costs associated with it. On top of that, many companies feel held back by their current warehouse management systems. These systems can be fairly static, and often rely too much on manual work, rigid order waves, inefficient pick paths, and prioritisation that can’t easily adjust. This static nature and lack of flexibility makes it really tough for businesses to keep up with their customers’ constantly changing needs. They’re looking for smarter technology that can help them tackle these challenges and step up their game in both efficiency and customer service.

What do you see as the biggest opportunities in the coming year for Lucas Systems?

AI and automation are everywhere now, and companies are looking to understand solutions and where they might fit best into their operations. Some are more mature in their levels of automation and process sophistication and others are fairly basic, Tier 2 or 3 for instance. What’s important to understand is that automation can’t hinder people. It’s got to complement and empower them. For instance, our software offers different profiles, providing various levels of checks and balances based on people’s experience. Our solutions offer fast integration and deployment, with any kind of WMS or automation.

There are no changes to your WMS. No disruption to your operation. You can plug in and get Dynamic Optimisation from day one.

Tell us about a recent project Lucas Systems were involved with.

One of our customers, a global healthcare products company, recently implemented the latest Tier 1 WMS at a number of its facilities. They were under the impression that it was able to perform smart batching and pick path optimisation. And it did…to some extent. As a trusted partner, they asked us to run some testing, and we found that even with the very latest and greatest WMS, we could still deliver more than 20% more throughput. We were able to unlock even more value from that WMS.

Lucas Systems

0289 600 2852

jennifer@lucasware.com

www.lucasware.com

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