I believe mobile robots will eventually change the face of warehousing. Kiva Systems, for example, has developed robots for each picking that can retrieve a small, square rack with multiple slots. The robot brings the rack to the worker, spins it so the correct facing is towards the picker, and then the slot to be picked lights up. Alternatively, if you were building mixed SKU case pallets, the robots… Continue reading
Currently, with the weak economy, many companies are not thinking so much about labor shortages. But here is a sobering thought: In 2011, the oldest of the 76 million baby boomers (people born between 1945 and 1964) will turn 65, the traditional retirement age. A systematic labor shortage is expected to impact many industries.
In the warehouse, ergonomics may be part of the answer to this challenge. Companies can… Continue reading
I’m still catching up from my brief vacation. But here is what caught our attention this week:
ARC recently published a strategic report called Asset Performance Management: An IT Perspective (available to ARC clients only). As I read through the report, I started thinking about a distribution center (DC) I recently visited. This 750,000 sq. ft. warehouse, which cost $250 million to build, made extensive use of conveyors and sorters directing jobs to people at computerized workstations or pick-to-light stations. The conveyors moved packages through box… Continue reading
The ongoing developments in intelligent and flexible material handling systems, which are basically robots, continue to fascinate me. For example, automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) used to be fairly dumb machines that moved from point to point by following a preset trail of magnets in the warehouse floor. Humans loaded them at one end of the warehouse and unloaded them at the other. But AGVs have gotten a whole lot smarter. … Continue reading
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