Two years ago, Staples Canada was picking e-commerce orders using printed pick lists, carts, and conveyors, an approach that had supported next-day delivery for decades but had not evolved alongside customer expectations or workforce realities.
“Believe it or not, two years ago we were picking our orders, our fulfillment centers with pen and paper,” said Paul Giamberardino, chief supply chain officer at Staples Canada. “Literally printing a pick list, walking around, checking it off.”
That manual process was increasingly at odds with the scale and speed of Staples Canada’s operations. The company serves nearly 300 retail stores nationwide, supports both B2B and B2C e-commerce, operates a dedicated fleet of more than 700 trucks, and reaches 92% of Canadians with next-day delivery.
Staples Canada knew that incremental system upgrades would not be enough. To protect service levels, improve productivity, and create a better employee experience, the company needed to fundamentally rethink how work moved through its fulfillment centers.
Speaking with Locus Robotics’ Sean Pineau, vp of sales for Locus Robotics during last month’s NRF Retail Big Show in New York City, Giamberardino detailed how the company began rethinking it warehouse strategy.
The catalyst for change
The first phase of transformation focused on data and systems. Staples Canada implemented Manhattan Active Warehouse Management to modernize inventory visibility and workflows. That delivered improvements in accuracy and customer outcomes, but the physical act of picking orders remained largely unchanged.
“We were still using carts in some of our facilities to push boxes up and down the aisles,” Giamberardino said. “So despite better accuracy, better data, better customer outcomes, we weren’t seeing the throughput and productivity gains we needed.”
That gap led Staples Canada to explore automation, including autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). After evaluating multiple providers, the company selected Locus Robotics based on three primary considerations.
First was the commercial model. “Robots as a service was appealing to us,” Giamberardino said. “When you’re owned by private equity, there isn’t an abundance of capital to go around.”
Second was implementation flexibility. Staples Canada did not want to shut down operations or reconfigure entire facilities. “We wanted to augment what we were doing today with a light-touch solution,” he said. “We needed something we could bring in rather quickly.”
The third, and ultimately decisive, factor was partnership. “From day one, it was the partnership that was created,” Giamberardino said. “They let us talk to their clients openly and understand what their experience was … that showed us they were a true partner.”
Starting small with people in mind
Staples Canada deliberately chose a smaller West Coast fulfillment center for its first deployment. The goal was not to test the technology, but to understand the human impact.
“What we really wanted to focus on was the employee experience,” Giamberardino said. “Bringing robots into a warehouse would appear to be a significant threat, and we didn’t want it to come across that way.”
Associates were involved early, trained alongside Locus teams, and positioned as collaborators rather than replacements. The facility shut down on a Friday night and reopened Monday morning with 19 robots on the floor.
“Within minutes, literally within hours, they were experts,” Giamberardino said. “You could just see the transformation that happened and it was positive.”
The go-live, as Staples leadership later described it, was “a non-event”—a critical confidence builder that paved the way for a much larger rollout.
Going all in: Removing conveyors in Ontario
The second deployment was far more ambitious. Staples Canada selected its largest fulfillment center outside Toronto, responsible for nearly 50% of its national e-commerce volume. The site relied heavily on conveyor infrastructure that had been in place for nearly three decades.
“All of that got ripped out over one long weekend,” Giamberardino said. “There was no going back.”
In its place, Staples Canada introduced Locus AMRs operating in open aisles, what Giamberardino described as a “robot highway.” Fifty robots went live on day one, with plans to ramp gradually. Instead, the facility reached full deployment within four days.
“We were reaching our productivity targets, our throughput, getting really rich data analytics,” he said. “It was a fantastic transformation.”
The physical changes also had unexpected benefits. “People came back in and it was like we had remodeled their home,” Giamberardino said. “It was bright. It was airy. There wasn’t the noise.”
Measurable impact
The operational results were immediate and significant:
- Pick errors dropped 73%, eliminating the need for downstream quality checks
- Order cycle time fell 70%, accelerating fulfillment
- Picks per hour doubled, driving labor productivity
- Training time dropped from days to minutes, enabling rapid onboarding
- Employee strain and injury risk declined, improving safety and morale
“Our productivity, our picks per hour doubled,” Giamberardino said. “And our training time … literally now within probably 15 minutes, 20 minutes you can be productive on the floor.”
Giamberardino relayed a conversation he had with one associate, Rupa, who had worked at the facility for nearly 30 years. After the rollout, she told Giamberardino, “Somebody’s really upset about the robots … my chiropractor. I don’t go see him anymore.”
A partnership, not a transaction
Beyond the metrics, Staples Canada emphasized the depth of collaboration with Locus Robotics throughout the journey.
“You could walk on the floor in the first week and have a very difficult time distinguishing who was an associate and who was from the Locus side,” Giamberardino said. “That’s how tightly integrated we were.”
That partnership extended to leadership engagement. During a post-implementation visit, Locus executives reviewed live operational dashboards and proactively suggested optimizations.
“That level of customer intimacy … permeates all the way down,” Giamberardino said. “You’re not buying a one-time transaction. You’re buying a partnership that should last you 10 years or more.”
For organizations considering warehouse automation, Giamberardino’s advice is direct.
“Until you start the journey, you don’t know how it’s going to unfold,” he said. “All of it sounds scary and challenging, but until you actually do it … our experience was very much on the other side.”
SC
MR
link