Honeywell’s Warehouse Automation Business Consolidates into Trew

Warehouse automation solutions are moving into a new wave of consolidation as technology vendors add new features and functions to address the increasing demands of e-commerce, manufacturing, retail and logistics firms. Customers are increasingly turning to an integrated approach, where robotics, material handling, software and lifecycle services are all provided by a single vendor, rather than developing a set of stand-alone solutions.

The acquisition of Honeywell’s businesses of Intelligrated and Transnorm, coupled with the acquisition of the businesses, are now complete, and all are now consolidated under common ownership and will be known as the Trew Group.

In line with this trend, American Industrial Partners (AIP) has completed its acquisition of Honeywell’s Intelligrated and Transnorm businesses, which will subsequently be consolidated under common ownership and known as the Trew Group.

The start-up company combines complementary skills in systems integration, project execution, manufacturing, and after-sales service, and will continue to have the same products, teams for manufacturing and after-sales service and the same customers to ensure business continuity. 

Industry context

As supply chains continue to become more complex and the expectations of fulfillment continue to rise, warehouse automation is becoming a strategic investment. Distribution centres are facing challenges to handle increased order volume, meet faster delivery timelines, and continue to deal with recurring labor shortages without compromising their efficiency. 

Consequently, companies are no longer using individual pieces of automation and are turning to warehouse ecosystems that integrate robotics, conveyors, intelligent software and real-time data analytics. This change is also contributing to consolidation in the material handling industry. 

Businesses are growing by acquiring other companies and partnering strategically with them to provide comprehensive automation solutions that can be deployed from system design and installation to software integration, maintenance and performance optimisation, to meet customer needs across the entire warehouse lifecycle.

Meanwhile, the warehouses are changing with advances in AI, robotics, vision systems and autonomous material handling. Automation vendors are now putting together these technologies in a single package to ensure the smarter transportation of inventory, predictive maintenance and more adaptive fulfilment processes.