integration Archives

Integrating Warehouse Robotics: SVT Robotics Demo

Robotics | By Clint Reiser • 04/14/2021

I am interested in seeing how the warehouse robotics landscape evolves. It is becoming clear to me that heterogenous environments will continue to be a reality, and likely expand along with robot adoption. SVT Robotics is one of the first names I heard in this niche. And finally this week I learned more.

During the Winter of 2020, I attended the Logistics and Warehousing Executive Briefing organized by MassRobotics. As I stated in the subsequent article, The Greater Boston Warehouse Robotics Cluster, robotics integration in the warehouse was the hot topic during the open discussion. A couple of attendees from Fortune 500 companies with substantial warehouse investment plans expressed the importance of integrating the robotics, automation, and IT landscapes within their organizations. This open discussion is where I learned of SVT Robotics, as a representative from the company communicated the firm’s approach to integration projects. Fast forward a year, and SVT Robotics sponsored a product demo session with Promat DX. This session displayed the visualization and logical flow of integration within the SVT Robotics SOFTBOT Platform. I found the recorded demo to be informative and hope to get a deeper briefing from SVT in the near future. Here is a link to the demo URL on the Promat page SVT Robotics Softbot Demo.

SOFTBOT Platform Demonstration

The demonstration walked the viewer through the process of integrating a WMS, autonomous mobile robots (AMR) from two robotics providers, and accompanying features. SVT breaks down its software, or SOFTBOTS, its three categories – connectors, features, and applications. Connectors are pre-built integrations to automation technologies. Features are specific functionality sets such as “picking.” And applications are unique combinations of features and connectors.

An SVT Labs WMS was chosen as the WMS (categorized as a feature), followed by a connector for Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR)and then another connector for Fetch Robotics. Subsequently, a couple features were selected – the Autonomous Mobile Robot Fleet Supervisor to control multiple robots in the solution and the Transport Mission Manager to orchestrate the transportation requests and conformations with user assistance devices. Finally, the connector to the Voodoo Robotics pick-to-light technology was selected.

After the SOFTBOTS were added to the workbench, the application was named and described, and the build out of the app continued. Starting with the WMS, each SOFTBOT was added to the canvas through a simple drag-and-drop process. Blue lines appeared on the graphic display to represent the integration specific to these SOFTBOTS as connected to each other and communicating. Subsequently the app was published. The environmental configuration to the database and server followed. It was then noted that it was a prerequisite to map the robots to the floor and their locations. This configuration was followed by a video of bots in a facility with a human working through an example of a robot mounted pick-to-light device communicating to the robots through the SOFTBOT Platform.

Final Word

I do not find middleware or integration technologies to be terribly exciting. But this demonstration was well thought out and skillfully presented. I recommend further researching the product if you believe it can create value and streamline implementation and integration processes at your facilities.

Tech Integration Keeps Shippers in Step with Customers

Business Intelligence | By Ken Fleming • 10/08/2020

The exponential growth of e-commerce in 2020 has brought peak-like levels of order volume for many retailers since as early as March. Looking to the quickly approaching actual peak season, volumes are predicted to hit unprecedented levels, and carriers have been warning shippers for months to expect capacity crunches, increased surcharges/fees and other challenges.

Shippers must overcome these challenges without sacrificing customer service, competitive pricing or margins to be successful and satisfy consumers, who still expect free shipping, fast delivery and full transparency. For many, that means getting more agile by expanding fulfillment and customer service capabilities so they can prepare in different ways, better manage partners and contain rising costs without sacrificing performance. How quickly and easily this can be achieved depends largely on how well a shipper’s mission-critical fulfillment technologies have been integrated to work cooperatively.

Preparedness Varies Greatly

Shippers using standalone systems in their supply chains, warehouses and fulfillment efforts will encounter more challenges than their autonomous warehouse and omnichannel competitors. Without connected systems working as one, shippers inevitably incur more costs and need more manual labor to fulfill orders. Lacking the inventory visibility and other controls afforded by integrated systems, these shippers cannot deliver the same level of customer service as their high-functioning and more agile competitors.

On the other end of the spectrum, fully-integrated technologies make it possible for shippers to provide inventory visibility and controls throughout the organization and quickly augment their capabilities with specialty software. Totally autonomous shippers offer a great example of the power of fully-integrated technologies. Often referred to as lights-out (Europe) or black-box (U.S.) fulfillment, these merchants require little or no human involvement to deliver hundreds of thousands of parcels daily from a single distribution center. Omnichannel retailers also make great use of fully-integrated technologies by deploying ship-from-store, buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) and other innovative fulfillment strategies.

In each of these examples, merchants rely on a designated system of record functioning as a central nervous system that unites otherwise disparate technologies and shares critical information throughout the organization. With this type of system in place, merchants enjoy big advantages when needs change and new challenges arise. They need not adjust operational processes and resources; instead, they can quickly add new specialty software solutions and technologies to address new requirements.

Easy Tech Integration with Containerization

While different types of technologies can serve as a system of record, each merchant must choose the one that makes the most sense based on its own unique needs, and these systems increasingly embrace containerization to make it easy for shippers to augment their capabilities by quickly adding specialty cloud-based software. Warehouse management systems (WMS), order management systems (OMS) and other types of technologies most commonly designated as a merchant’s “system of record” increasingly come ready to integrate with specialty software to support a wide range of fulfillment capabilities, including:

Fleet monitoring
Counting inventory
Monitoring supply chain workflow
Category management
Merchandise operations
Managing locations
Multi-carrier rate shopping
Parcel shipping
Fulfillment tracking

Consider Interoperability

Whether a shipper already has a system of record in place or needs to work toward this goal, they should keep two considerations top of mind:

The interoperability of all mission-critical technologies
The fundamental requirement of transactional data exchange

Shippers with a system of record already in place can quickly augment fulfillment, customer service and other critical capabilities with specialty software, but they should ensure compatibility with their existing system of record whenever possible. Fully autonomous, omnichannel and other merchants with an integrated system of record can keep fulfillment efforts on track without missing a beat as they add specialty software to expand capabilities so long as they ensure interoperability. When maintaining a unified fulfillment operation, ensuring the compatibility of specialty cloud-based software being added saves money and, more importantly with peak season looming, time.

Merchants not yet leveraging a system of record that fully integrates with a wide range of specialty software have a lot to gain by putting the right system of record in place to unify disparate technologies and software to ensure a cohesive and orderly overall approach to order fulfillment and customer service, but the right system of record varies. To select the best system of record to meet its unique needs, each business should weigh the value and consider the pros and cons of all viable options. They can start by answering three questions:

Which option will best mesh with mission-critical specialty software already in use by the organization?
Do restrictions or requirements of ownership or parent companies limit the available options?
How many manual integrations will each potential system of record require to work with all mission-critical specialty software, and what data exchange processes are supported?

Any systems not yet supporting transactional data exchange and still relying on batch data exchange should be eliminated from consideration. Even if they can be leveraged to fully automate a warehouse, systems that rely on batch data sharing leave many benefits unrealized. Insisting on the ability to exchange transactional data in real-time across the organization via fully-integrated systems provides merchants with a wealth of benefits that reach well beyond the warehouse.

Beyond the Warehouse: Other Benefits of Integration

When organizations insist on near-real-time transactional data exchange, they unlock next-level benefits that extend far beyond an automated warehouse. Customer service, financial and inventory management initiatives can all benefit greatly by accessing these integrated systems.

Integrated systems and transactional data allow organizations to deliver superior customer service with less manual intervention and cost. On the self-service front, customers can help themselves to real-time order status updates. When customers contact customer service teams, they too will be better cared for, because customer service teams can access the same real-time information repositories on behalf of customers and offer greater problem resolution strategies.

When payments and other financial details tied to a customer or their orders are available to those with a need to know throughout the organization, this too improves customer service, but financial initiatives and departments also benefit directly from these integrated systems exchanging real-time transactional data. Integrating all mission-critical software that houses financial data into a unified system of record protects cost data, for example, and this can be a huge benefit for shippers sending even thousands of orders/day, let alone hundreds of thousands.

Consider the costs associated with losing financial data tied to just 10,000 shipments. This necessitates a lot of manual work and human intervention. A specialized solution like a transportation management system (TMS) for parcel shipping, when integrated with a WMS, OMS or other system of record, can solve this problem and save thousands of labor hours by mapping all deliveries back to cost center codes, accounting codes, carrier reference data and more if all systems are integrated and sharing data with each other in real time.

Inventory management also benefits from integration and real-time data exchange. Without integration, most of an organization lacks inventory visibility and cannot see what is housed where. This makes it impossible to implement an omnichannel strategy and places customers out of reach. With proper integration and real-time data exchange, merchants can better serve customers with ship-from-store, BOPIS, in-store returns and other omnichannel fulfillment offerings.

Extend Standards throughout the Organization

Merchants should be sure to coordinate technology implementations throughout the entire organization. Whether at use in stores, the warehouse or other distribution centers, shared technology implementation standards reduce chaos and errors and make the many benefits of an integrated system of record possible. Organizations should coordinate with their procurement and purchasing departments to put approval processes in place to help control technology adoption and meet all standards throughout the entire organization.

Totally autonomous shippers, omnichannel retailers and other shippers with a unified system of record can quickly and efficiently augment their fulfillment capabilities with modern specialty cloud-based software to meet rising customer demands and boost profitability. Making careful choices; insisting on real-time information exchange; and requiring reliable, practical, organization-wide standards will simplify the effort and greatly increase the odds of not only automating fulfillment but delivering a wide range of organizational benefits that help merchants meet and exceed customer expectations.

Ken Fleming is president of Logistyx Technologies, the leader in Transportation Management for parcel shipping. Since the mid-1990s, Ken has led successful launches of many new technologies and services, including supply chain management, e-commerce, SaaS, and enterprise software and systems integration solutions. Ken can be reached at ken.fleming@logistyx.com.

Guest Commentary: 5 Essential Technology Questions to Ask Any Logistics Service Provider

Guest Commentary | By Ryan Pettit • 10/18/2012

You probably have a list of standard technology questions you ask potential logistics service providers. When you’re evaluating the technology of various LSPs, you can separate fact from fiction by asking a few simple questions. When pursuing a solution that obviously incorporates technology services it’s natural to investigate the provider’s technology. What surprises many companies is the importance of a provider’s technology even when the solution appears to not be technology-based. It’s an increasingly complex and interconnected world out there and an underperforming partner can significantly hamper your ability to take best advantage of it. Luckily, it’s easy to know whether a provider is well qualified.

When evaluating a provider’s technology, I recommend asking five essential questions. You will likely find additional value when you add these questions to your RFP — you’ll get better data to make a more informed decision.

What does visibility really mean to the logistics service provider? Can you see your shipments’ status at any point in the process? Is transportation data integrated the next day, or can you get updates throughout the day? The answer could mean the difference between your ability to head problems off before they start, or the imperfect scenario of reacting to problems with day-old data. Also ask how easy is it to collect the data, interpret the findings, and analyze the metrics. Does the technology platform work the same way in every region where you do business? Do they offer global visibility, and can they demonstrate it? Visibility, especially global visibility, is essential to helping you proactively mitigate risk. With visibility, you can also track and trace worldwide without information gaps.
Can they customize their tools to meet your needs? As you know, the ability to tailor a technology to suit your business is huge. Do you really have the time or resources to alter your business processes to fit your provider’s technology? The answer is probably no, and you shouldn’t have to. Make sure you ask detailed questions about the extent to which you can configure the technology to your specific needs. With a customized approach, you can increase your speed to market and easily clear barriers to progress.
What process integration options do they offer? By all accounts, everybody does EDI. But in reality, not every shipper can do traditional EDI. More importantly, it’s unlikely that all of your supply chain partners can do EDI. Ask about the effort the technology provider makes to use all the tools you and your supply chain partners use—from XML files to smart phones to web tools, and more. It’s paramount that you can easily integrate the way you do business and gather data with the provider’s transportation technology. Also ask if the technology easily automates processes. Can their technology help you improve your data quality? It should be able to assist you with all these things.
How many of your current service providers are already integrated with their technology? Last month, another Logistics Viewpoints guest commentator wrote about new carrier onboarding as a key criterion when selecting any shipping software. I couldn’t agree more. You probably have a broad (and changing) network of service providers. Make sure you ask about the ability to connect to and easily access your shippers, carriers, and anyone else in your network. If your provider has a large worldwide network of connected companies, you’ll likely discover that many of companies you work with are already on the platform, which makes the start-up process that much easier.
How mature is their system availability process? Do they regularly test their availability and problem recovery process? Can they walk you through it? Do they maintain their own data center or have they outsourced that responsibility? Ask about their data security and inquire about their disaster recovery program. Do they have redundant systems that can prevent long outages? Data security and business continuity are crucial to any company that depends on technology (including yours).

Beyond these questions, you can also look into other aspects, such as knowing who controls your provider’s core software. A provider that owns its own technology and executes with it every day is going to update the technology more quickly to evolve at the pace of your business. That is part of the reason why we have a long history of investing in our own technology platform. As our CIO points out in a recent blog posting, what you’re really after is a solution that will grow with your company. If your LSP does not own its transportation technology and have in-house support personnel, it may not be able to evolve fast enough to accommodate your business. You need your technology to fit your business requirements both now and in the future. At the very least, expect your provider to have full control over the system’s core software so they can develop it as your needs evolve.

In summary, when you have a provider that can excel in the five core areas discussed above, and can articulate how they will continue to improve their capabilities, then you are ahead of the curve.

Ryan Pettit directs C.H. Robinson’s technology strategies. He leads the Navisphere technology development platform and other product development initiatives. Ryan joined the company in 2000 and has over a decade of technology leadership experience in logistics and TMS. He enjoys working directly with industry stakeholders to collaborate on innovative transportation solutions and he is a frequent contributor on TMS strategies for Transportfolio® Blog and the TMC Blog.

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