Automation in warehousing

JUNE 2018

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Contents

Background

Brief history of automation

Why do companies automate?

Drivers and business rationale

Equipment deployed

Possible future developments

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Background

Structural engineer – steel designer in the mining industry for c.

10 years (- specialised in mining headgears!)

Branched out into automation in April 1983 – worked for a

supplier of automation for 14 years

Grew tired of answering the question “How do you solve this

problem?”

Joined a small, supply chain consultancy company to answer

the question “Why do you have this problem, in the first place?”

Specialised in large, cutting edge automated systems for

c. 20 years

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Muff Lucas

Brief history of automation

Scandinavia was the first home of automation in

warehousing

For example, 30 years ago Sweden had only 8.5 million

people – insufficient people to do all the work needed

Bigger companies that require very fast response – such

as Ocado and Amazon – invest in significant amounts of

automation

Each of the basic warehouse processes can be automated

to a greater or lesser extent

The most sophisticated automation facilitates picking

operations

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Why do companies automate?

Make the work easier

Manual labour - very hard work (up to 9 tonnes or more lifted per shift!)

Minimise “boring” tasks / Maximise the use of human intelligence

Reduce annual costs

Reduce inventory by increasing efficiency

Automation has high capital cost but low annual

operational costs

Reduce labour

Insufficient people available to do the work

People are not prepared to do the hard work required

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Drivers and business rationale

This table gives a brief overview of the key reasons for companies to install automation

Labour and Staff Property Service Levels Utilisation

Reduced labour cost

Quality and availability of

employees

Ergonomics / Health & Safety

Legislation (current and

potential future)

Space efficiency

Property size and

location optimisation

Facility costs

Accuracy

Improved on-shelf availability

Increased security / traceability

Capability to handle an increased

product range

Shorter order lead times / response

times

More efficient in-store logistics

Reduced product damage

Multiple store formats

E-commerce

Consolidation of deliveries

Improved transport

utilisation

Resilient supply, reduced

inventory

Improved environmental

responsibility

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Essential for automation – good pallets

Since the 1940s, the pallet has played a significant role in modern materials

handling

Pallets have had significant influence on the way materials are handled,

stored and shipped

In the 1930s, a railway wagon loaded with 13,000 cases of canned goods

would take about 3 days to unload; these same canned goods - loaded onto

pallets - took 4 hours to unload

The modern wooden pallet was born in 1925 – but a variety of sizes and

designs were utilized, which resulted in costly delays and higher labour costs

Standard pallets were specified by the railways around 1968

The inventor of the “Euro pallet” was said to be the Svensson brothers of

Gyllsjö, Skåne, Sweden

Wooden or plastic pallets can carry up to 1500Kgs

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Early development of pallet handling automation

Hand Pallet Truck

(HPT c. 1930)

c. 0.2m lift height

Counterbalance

Truck (CBAL c. 1920)

c. 6m lift height

Very Narrow

Aisle truck (VNA

c. 1950)

c. 18m lift height

Automated Stacker Crane

(ASRS c. 1940)

c. 40m lift height

Early development related to equipment lifting capacity and height of lift.

Focus on speed and density of storage followed.

Automation removed the operator from the equipment.

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Basic warehouse functions

Basic warehousing has the following functions:

Receiving

Horizontal transport between operations

Storage

Picking

Packing / Despatch marshalling

Despatch

An automated warehouse has the additional

requirement of a functionality rich, real time

Control System

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Control Systems

Automation was facilitated by the development barcodes and of faster and more sophisticated control systems

Very early equipment used relays (e.g. New Bodlian Library conveyor c. 1940)

Modern computers provide fast, real time communication to enable automation to operate efficiently

The heart of any automated system is its control room which provides visibility of all the:

work for the warehouse – past, current and future

equipment – local controller feedback and strategically placed cameras

errors – human and machine (both are inevitable!)

There are very few competent vendors of Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)

One of the biggest issues when implementing automation is always the WMS

It ALWAYS takes longer to develop, test and commission - than the Board would like…

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Receiving

Receiving tasks include:

Ordering goods

Booking in deliveries

Unloading deliveries from vans / lorries / post

Identifying exactly what has been received

Keeping inventory of the stock

Putting away stock into storage

Automated Vehicle Loading and Unloading (AVLO) can expedite loading and unloading

when these functions are a significant percentage of the overall delivery time

Vehicle pallet loading or unloading can be reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes

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Storage - pallets

Both manual and automated warehouses use

racking and shelving for storage

The key advantages of automation are the speed,

storage density and height at which it can operate

Fork lift trucks - 18m high and c. 20 movements per hour

Automated pallet cranes – up to 40m (or even 50m)

high and c. 30 movements per hour

Automated “mini-load” cranes – up to 25m high and

c. 60 movements per hour

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Crane video

Storage – cases or tote bins

Mini-load cranes can be used to store either cases or tote bins

Ocado uses a system called “Smart Platform” to store totes in a stack.

It uses a “swarm” of robots to move totes and take them to / from

conveyors and lifts for output or input

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Ocado - Autostore

Horizontal transport systems

Horizontal transport is used to move pallets, tote

bins or cases from one process area to the next

Major elements of automation deployed are:

Conveyors

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs)

AGV video

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Picking

Picking is the most complex and labour intensive operation in a warehouse

The “cutting edge technology” for warehouse automation focuses on picking

Technologies include:

A-Frames (- mainly for pharmaceuticals)

Palletisers

Robot arms

Currently, automation is used mainly to place goods onto pallets or roll cages, or into tote bins

For more complex picking, or picking of smaller, more diverse items, automation delivers the products to a manual picking workstation where a person places the required item(s) on a pallet or into a tote bin or box

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A- Frame video

Picking robot arms

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Robot arm with hand video

Significant advances have been

made with robot arms used for

picking. Developments are

focused on the “gripper” used

for picking.

Pocket sorter

E-commerce has driven significant development

in automated solutions

Based on hanging garment technology, a pocket

(or pouch) sorter transports picked items from the

pick face to a packing bench – and sequences all

of the items for a specific customer order to one

packing station

The packer has visibility of the physical shape of

the items to pack and can optimise the packaging

sent to the customer

Pocket Sorter video

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Amazon Kiva

“Kiva” was purchased by Amazon to

facilitate its e-commerce operations

Kiva comprises small AGVs that carry

shelves (pods) from storage to picking

work stations

The AGVs operate on a grid system

using camera recognition of 3D

barcodes for location and routing

Amazon Kiva video

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Shuttles

Shuttles are small “AGVs” used for storage

and high speed outfeed – usually to picking

workstations

They are often used to buffer totes until a

complete order is ready for Despatch

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Shuttles and Univeyor head video

Despatch

Despatch can be facilitated by sorters which direct stock or

packed orders to a lane allocated to a specific destination

Depending on the weight and size of items, sorters can

operate at very high speeds:

Postal sorters for mail – up to 20,000 items per hour

E-commerce sorters with lanes allocated to delivery routes –

c. 6,000 items per hour

Heavy weight items – c. 2,000 items per hour

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Sorter video

Possible future developments

As mentioned at the beginning of this talk, one of the main reasons

for the development of automation in warehousing is the shortage

of people to do the work

Significant developments are currently being made in robotics that

may (eventually) reverse this trend

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"Man" robot video

Any questions?

???

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Youtube - References

Crane video:

https://youtu.be/qBzN4Ifyfkg

Ocado – Autostore robots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iogFXDWqDak

AGV video – Egemin

https://yhoo.it/2LSbmT3

A-Frames

https://yhoo.it/2t9plMz

Pocket sorter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY6-zBm-pD0

Kiva Robots in amazon

https://yhoo.it/2t9h0IB

Shuttles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO7fvrdTCgs

Sorter

https://youtu.be/x17yB2AsDzY

“Atlas” Robot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY

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