Editor’s Note: In today’s Thursday Feature, we are going to examine the rise of the machines, or why robots have suddenly made the leap from manufacturing to widespread use in material handling in warehouses and distribution centers.
Just a few years ago, robots were widely used in manufacturing but rarely — if ever — seen in warehouses or distribution centers. But over the
past couple of years, all that has changed.
Many companies today are turning to automated guided vehicles (AGVs), robotic order pickers, pallet assemblers and other types of industrial robots to make their warehouse and DC operations faster and more streamlined.
So what happened? Why are robots suddenly appearing in so many warehouse and distribution centers?
The Need for Speed
The first reason is that there is a critical need among warehouse and DC operators to increase the efficiency of their operations. The rise of eCommerce and online ordering — along with increased competition for faster and more accurate delivery to both retail stores and at-home customers — has forced businesses to find innovative, new ways to make their distribution networks work faster, longer and more efficiently.
When business levels suddenly increase, the process of hiring, training and implementing additional human workers to the workforce isn’t a fast enough response to higher demand.
But adding new robots — or turning up the speed of existing robotic equipment — is not only faster, but often less costly than hiring more human help.
And there aren’t any robot labor unions to deal with over wages, scheduling, breaks, or when it’s time to lay off robot workers when demand goes back down.
Location, Location, Location
Then there’s location. Right now, there’s a warehousing and DC building boom going on near major transportation hubs such as Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas and other cities.
But the closer you get to major urban centers, the higher the cost of real estate. So operators of these new facilities have to figure out how to do the same — or more — amount of work with less physical space.
Robots offer the perfect solution, according to Patrick Pepin, business development manager for Axium, a company that provides warehouse and DC robot solutions.
“DCs are … getting close to urban centers and that creates pressure to be more efficient in less space,” Pepin told Modern Materials Handling. “As you get closer to urban areas, it’s also more of a challenge to find a workforce willing to handle boxes all day, especially across three shifts.”
Simple Solutions to Complicated Problems
Consumers have more choices today than ever before. And because of increased competition from e-Retailers and other online businesses, distributors need to be able to provide a greater variety of products than ever before.
As a result, pallets leaving warehouses and DCs are more likely to have many different SKUs on a single skid. And that requires a more complicated picking process. Combine that with the need for increased speed to keep up with demand and competition, and in many cases human workers simply can’t keep up.
Bob Hoffman is director of sales support and strategy for Grenzebach Logistics. He gave the example of a food and beverage distribution company that suddenly had to deal with orders from customers for dozens of different beverage products, compared to the handful of choices offered just a few years before.
“The area they serve still drinks the same amount of product, but the variety of SKUs is changing,” Hoffman said. “That means the number of SKUs per pallet keeps growing due to the increase in slow-movers. To run from pick face to pick face hand-stacking a case here and there will quickly become unsustainable.”
But where human workers can quickly become overwhelmed with such complexity, robot pickers and pallet stackers are more than able to complete the same tasks faster and more accurately.
Advancements in Technology
Another explanation for the rise of the machines in warehouse and DC environments is recent technological improvements to the grippers robots use to grasp products from shelves and racks.
When it comes to handling various types of surfaces — including shrink wrap, cases, cans, trays and others — humans traditionally outperformed robots in the past. But all that changed with the recent development of new types of gripping devices that were versatile enough to handle many more types of surfaces accurately and safely.
The precision, versatility and accuracy of end-of-arm tooling — or gripping — devices on material handling robots has undergone an exponential improvement just in the past couple of years, according to Pepin.
“The speed of evolution is huge,” he said. “In 2009, a single-robot, mixed-case palletizing cell handled around 500 cases per hour. In six years, we can now reliably reach more than three times that.”
Tom Pollard, applications engineer for Cimcorp North America, said poor gripping capabilities was the main objection to bringing robots into the distribution chain. But now that the problem has been solved, it has opened the doors to the use of robots in warehousing and DCs from coast to coast.
“There was no alternative,” Pollard said of the earlier version robots that didn’t have the gripping precision of today’s machines. “You had to go for a manual process instead. Now, a lot more situations can apply the technology. Customers wonder if they robot will still work if they take on a new product line. With a high probability we can say it will, whereas three years ago I would have had to ask more questions to qualify that.”
Future of Distribution Robotics
When robots were first introduced into automobile assembly lines and other manufacturing settings in the 1980s, many companies took a cautious “wait and see” approach before embracing the technology. Eventually, however, they were widely used and today robots are so common in manufacturing that it’s difficult to remember what it was like without them.
The same thing eventually will happen with robots in warehouses and DCs, said Hoffman.
“I’ve watched the evolution of welding robots from the early stages to where they are now, and I’ve seen plenty of ‘revolutionary’ robots get bulldozed in the early days,” he said. “But now, no one would even think of installing a manual welding station.
“That’s where warehouse robotics is going to be one day. Once we fight through the growing pains, some day someone will say, ‘Why did we ever manually case pick?’ ”