Madison’s AMR Project: “This is a major investment in our future & our customers”
IN DEPTH: Madison is nearing the completion of its Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) Project at its Milton Keynes headquarters. Years in the making and quite possibly the first of its kind in the UK cycling industry, Dominic Langan, Madison CEO, tells CIN what it means for the business, its customers and the future…
It’s usually the latest product innovations that grab the headlines and views on social media, while the innovation and graft that gets products through the retail supply chain and onto shelves largely goes on, uncelebrated, in the background.
One notable exception has been Madison’s warehouse automation project, which the firm has been sharing details of on its social channels and gaining a fair level of interest. It’s a project that has been in the pipeline for some time and, thanks to the advent of new tech like AI coupled with the trends of the mid-2020s – including the difficulties of recruitment and the increasingly complex needs of retail, the project began in earnest last year.
“Warehouse automation has been on our agenda for many years, ever since we installed our first Warehouse Management System (WMS) back in 2004, which I managed at the time as Operations Director,” says Dominic Langan (now CEO) at Madison. “Technology has advanced enormously since then and so have both the cost of operations and the complexity of customer requirements.”
In mid-2024, Madison began the project and as preparation visited various facilities as well as running feasibility studies to determine where it would add real value. The results were conclusive: “It was clear that automation was viable for us and would deliver a strong return on investment.”
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the aforementioned technological updates that have enabled the system: “The use of AI technology makes this project particularly exciting. It gives us greater agility in maintaining optimal stock levels within the AMR system and in the right locations. Without AI, that would be an enormous manual task and far less efficient.”
Speed & consistency
The big question is, what kind of benefits will the AMR project bring to Madison and its customers? Dom is clear: “The main benefit for our customers will be improved speed and consistency of service. During peak periods, we haven’t always achieved the levels we aim for and this system will help eliminate those fluctuations.
“Customers should see improvements fairly quickly, but above all, we want them to feel confident in receiving a fast, consistent and accurate service from Madison.
“From our side, the AMR system gives us the bandwidth to absorb peaks in demand and the scalability to support future growth. It allows us to deliver a consistently high level of service.”
For many business owners, the recruitment game has become more fragmented and difficult in particular areas, and Madison has not been immune: “Recruiting
warehouse staff, particularly in Milton Keynes, has become increasingly difficult and peak-season volumes often create congestion in the aisles. Introducing robotics helps alleviate these issues and reduces operational costs. Our robots will also operate overnight, relocating hundreds of totes into optimal positions for the following day. The AI-driven software constantly analyses product demand and adjusts locations based on seasonality, popularity, and product lifecycle – ensuring we’re always as efficient as possible.”
The system is also going to help overcome that other industry challenge – excess packaging. Long a bugbear for retailers seeking more sustainable practices and lacking the space to store mounting piles of recyclables, efficient packaging of orders has been a long term and seemingly difficult to solve industry wide issue, but the AMR system is going to help remove the issue for Madison, as Dom explains: “Currently, our two distribution centres are split into ten picking zones. Without this setup, pickers would walk miles and orders would take far too long to collate. However, it means a single customer order might be picked from all ten zones, each requiring its own box, void filler, tape, and label.
“The AMR turns that process on its head. One picker will now pick ten customer orders simultaneously. This drastically reduces the number of boxes required per order, which significantly cuts down packaging waste. We know our customers will welcome this change, both for efficiency and sustainability reasons.”
Fully operational in Q3 ‘26
Madison will be shipping its first orders from the AMR at the end of Q1 2026, and is scheduled to be fully operational by early Q3. “It would have been far quicker and simpler to install the AMR in a new building,” reveals Dom, “but instead we’re reconfiguring our existing primary distribution centre while still operating. That has been challenging, but we’re now through the most disruptive phase and the racking is now being installed and taking shape.”
CIN has toured many of the warehouses of the UK’s cycling industry over the years, but Madison’s AMR-focused revamp feels like it might be the first of its kind on British shores and the Madison boss thinks so too: “Within the UK cycling distribution sector, I think it’s a first. Shimano implemented a similar system in their Dutch warehouse some years ago and I’ve seen impressive operations in Europe, notably at Dainese in Italy, but this level of automation is certainly new territory for our industry in the UK.”
While it seems likely the new system will broaden the scope of the services Madison can offer to bike shops, for now the aim is to get everything bedded in. Dom says: “The system will make us more operationally efficient, creating the headroom to support growth and explore additional value-added services such as drop-ship fulfilment for example. Our immediate focus is to get the AMR running smoothly; the next phase will be integrating those additional services.
“The AMR project is a major investment in the future of Madison and our customers. It’s about creating a more agile, efficient and sustainable operation allowing us to serve the trade better and support the growth of cycling in the UK. This technology future-proofs our logistics and ensures we can continue delivering the high standards our customers expect, every day, all year round.”
