Warehouse Automation: The Missing Link in Your Supply Chain?

When you place an order online, whether to be delivered directly to your door or picked up in-store, you expect it to be available fast. If it’s faulty, you’re also expecting a simple and seamless return or exchange process. This is a typical assumption for today’s consumer and has been for some time. For warehouse and distribution hubs, this has meant constant pressure to get orders processed, packaged, loaded, and sent out to customers as efficiently as possible.

But Things Are About To Get A Whole Lot Easier

Why? Warehouse automation. The simple fact is that within all these processes, there are many moving parts, and robots can improve the efficiency of nearly all these stages. It means operations can be conducted night and day at a consistent level of quality and productivity, performing tasks that would require more labour and time to achieve.

With the potential to increase throughput while lowering costs and improving safety, it’s predicted that robotic automation will experience a huge surge in growth over the next five years. And as the market for autonomous robots grows, even the smallest-scale supply chains will become more fluid.

What Can Robots Already Do In A Supply Chain?

Picking And Packing

Autrix’s AMRs have reduced the distance pickers need to walk each day by up to 10 miles, almost entirely eliminating the need for walking. Customers’ operatives now work from dedicated picking stations, where robots transport the same loads that would otherwise be picked manually.

Lifting Heavy Loads

Thanks to the counterweight mechanism built into VNP15 forklifts, large loads can be carried to great heights without the need for a human operator. The carefully calculated balance makes the entire system far more effective at every skill set you need from a high-quality automated forklift.

Store More

CTU robots deliver unmanned picking and carrying capabilities in narrow-laneway shelf scenarios. It can handle multiple SKUs and reach heights of up to eight metres, making it perfect for high-position storage.

Save Space

Combined with the minimal infrastructure needed for navigation and mobility, innovative robots like the Q series can keep your manufacturing processes moving without wasting valuable facility floor space. This makes more room for equipment, materials, and anything else businesses might need.

Moving Product Lines

Robots can carry whole production stations to workers so they can complete their assembly tasks. Once a task is complete, the robot will carry the item along the production line to keep operations moving smoothly and efficiently.

Integrating Technologies

As more warehouses and logistics environments start to integrate robotics into their operations, it’s important to find providers who can connect to the existing technology in your warehouse.

The article is written by Joe Daft, Managing Director and Founder of Autrix, a pioneering robotic automation company in the UK.

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