Prological’s report urges future-ready warehouse design to align infrastructure with evolving automation, efficiency, and workforce needs.
The warehouse automation landscape has changed more in the past five years than in the previous 25. Yet many facilities remain fundamentally unsuited to modern automation requirements, creating a widening gap between existing infrastructure and operational needs.
Automation systems have evolved far quicker than the buildings designed to house them, with properties once considered state-of-the-art increasingly inadequate for modern automation requirements.
Prological’s newest industry report “The Future of Warehouses: Why your building needs to integrate with what’s coming” explores this critical misalignment and examines the design elements required for future automation requirements that balance immediate business needs against long-term, strategic growth.
“If you went back 25-30 years ago, warehouses were being designed and prioritised around manual labour. They had wider aisles, minimal vertical reach, typically low roof heights. It wasn’t uncommon for a warehouse to be considered ‘high’ if it was 8-9 metres. Now, with automation demands and multi-level systems, we’re capable of going to 50 metres in a single level for Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems,” Sean Ledbury, Director at Prological
The retrofit problem
The financial implications for businesses with unsuitable facilities are substantial. Retrofitting existing warehouses to meet automation requirements typically adds 15-30 per cent to project costs and extends implementation timelines by similar percentages.
These figures don’t capture the full impact either – operational disruption, temporary capacity constraints, and the opportunity cost of delayed automation benefits compound the real expense.
Ledbury warns: “Introducing automation systems into a spec building can be prohibitively expensive if the building’s height or layout is unsuitable, reducing storage efficiency and limiting future growth. Floors may also need to be reinforced or the slab replaced to meet tighter tolerances, and these costs can quickly outweigh the benefits of automation.”
Six critical infrastructure pillars
The report identifies six essential elements for automation-ready facilities. These include vertical capacity and structural precision, power infrastructure capable of handling energy-intensive systems, advanced connectivity for real-time data
management, environmental controls suited to robotics, strategic location with transport access, and – critically – people-centred design.
This final pillar often receives inadequate attention. Automation may reduce the volume of manual work in warehouses, but people remain one of the biggest challenges. Labour availability is one of the industry’s most pressing problems, making workplace quality and ergonomics competitive necessities rather than luxuries. Modern facilities must attract workers through components such as climate control, natural lighting, and ergonomic workstations.
“The person you’re trying to hire can choose between your 1980s-style warehouse or Amazon’s climate-controlled facility with ergonomic workstations and natural lighting. It’s not a difficult choice for them,” Ledbury notes.
Strategic planning
The whitepaper recommends beginning any automation infrastructure project with what Prological terms a “reality check” – a comprehensive assessment examining each infrastructure pillar against planned automation requirements. This assessment must be brutally honest about current capabilities and limitations, as wishful thinking at this stage leads to expensive surprises later in the process.
“Customers often start with great enthusiasm about fixing all their current problems, only to discover months down the track that the building height is insufficient, floors can’t bear the loads, or there isn’t adequate power infrastructure,” Ledbury explains.
As vacancy rates rise across Australia’s industrial property market, businesses have increasing negotiation power to secure facilities that genuinely support their operational requirements. Without proper assessment and planning, organisations risk investing heavily in retrofitting unsuitable facilities or accepting operational constraints that limit competitive advantage. The businesses that act decisively today will reap the rewards.
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