Swisslog is building SynQ around AutoStore and autonomous forklifts at Sumitomo

Sumitomo Drive Technologies has put a dollar value and workforce frame around Swisslog's Chesapeake project. In September 2025, Sumitomo described the work as a $9.3 million upgrade at its Americas distribution center that would optimize throughput, double inventory capacity, and maintain jobs. Swisslog's July announcement supplies the system architecture: 14 AutoStore robots, 22,872 bins, and 11 autonomous forklifts at Sumitomo Drive Technologies USA headquarters.

Swisslog announced the project in July 2025. By September, Sumitomo had publicly framed it around employee training and job preservation, adding workforce-preparation context to Swisslog's throughput and capacity claims. The system was in commissioning-phase public material, so production throughput will have to come after go-live.

This is a factory-modernization story more than a storage story. Sumitomo needed more inventory capacity and better throughput while keeping the Chesapeake facility and its workforce in place. Small parts, heavier components, and assembly-line replenishment create different flows; a storage-only project would leave material movement outside the same control logic.

SynQ gives Swisslog the connecting layer. Swisslog describes SynQ as warehouse management software built to integrate Swisslog, AutoStore, and third-party equipment across material-handling layers. At Sumitomo, that means one execution layer can decide which AutoStore bin is retrieved, which autonomous forklift moves heavier material, and which kitting station receives components for assembly.

KUKA bought Swisslog in 2014 to strengthen its general-industry automation business, describing Swisslog as a warehouse and distribution automation specialist with more than EUR 500 million in sales. That robotics-parent context is relevant because Sumitomo is asking Swisslog to combine warehouse storage with autonomous material movement. The project treats cube storage as one part of a production-flow system, with heavier components moving through autonomous forklifts under SynQ.

AutoStore integration is crowded, but Swisslog's Sumitomo angle is mixed-flow orchestration under SynQ. The company says it has delivered more than 400 AutoStore projects globally, and this deployment extends that base by coordinating AutoStore bins with autonomous forklift movement under one software layer. Sumitomo's own follow-up keeps the customer frame practical: employees are being trained around the automated system while inventory capacity doubles.

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