FIVE SIGNS

You Need To Consider Automated Warehouse Equipment

Automation is increasingly becoming part of just about every aspect of our lives these days and has found a big opportunity within the material handling industry. To keep up with the high velocity of goods moving across modern supply chains, it’s almost certain that we’ll see warehousing, fulfillment and logistics operations continue to become increasingly automated.

Automation doesn’t need to be complicated or carry a high-tech enterprise-level philosophy; there are many products available today that you can integrate into your operation quickly to deliver a positive return on investment (ROI) from day one without costly or time-consuming integration projects. If you’re wondering if easy-to-deploy automated warehouse equipment is right for your operation, here are five signs you to need to consider.

1. Repetitive and time-consuming tasks

Do you have employees spending a lot of time moving materials or products around your facility? These tasks may seem simple, but they are non-value-added and monotonous, leading to fatigue, turnover and decreased productivity.

Automated equipment that uses a collaborative approach with staff, such as a cobot or user-directed AMR, can often drop into your warehouse without much of any change and address such issues.

If you are looking to upgrade your warehouse equipment to act as a productivity force multiplier, automation is likely right for you. Having automated equipment handle non-value-added tasks, like point-topoint travel, frees up workers to focus on higher-value tasks or direct multiple independent workflows concurrently. The promise of doing this with automation is something that many companies have been keenly looking to do for years and now the technology, cost and ease of deployment are at a point to make such solutions accessible for most operations. Autonomous mobile robots are ready to take over repetitive time-consuming tasks and some can be set up and operational in less than one hour.

2. Safety concerns

Manual-driven material handling equipment can be dangerous and can lead to accidents and injuries. Automated vehicles can help reduce such risks as operator distractions, fatigue and operator error during transit are taken out of the loop. Products that come equipped with highly reliable sensors and cam- eras that detect obstacles and prevent collisions with inventory, equipment and personnel.

3.

Increased demand

As an organization grows and demands increase, the need for automation becomes more apparent. Automated warehouse equipment can help manufacturing and logistics organizations scale up quickly by increasing efficiency and throughput without the need for additional labour, be it for ongoing needs or to supplement a workforce during peak seasons.

4.

Inefficient workflows

Are you experiencing bottlenecks or inefficiencies in your workflows? This could be due to manual processes that are slowing down your manufacturing or logistics operations. Automated vehicles can be programmed to perform missions and move materials between workstations to optimize operations and ensure goods are where they are needed without significant labour requirements or coordination.