MHD WAREHOUSING
MEETING TODAY’S AUTOMATION CHALLENGES
Khurshed Mirza, Director, Warehouse Automation (APAC) for OPEX, discusses the warehousing and materials handling technologies available – and coming soon – to meet the challenges of Australian warehouses and DCs.
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he need for sustainable supply chains has been brought to the forefront by the recent and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To address this need, the evolution from manual warehousing to smart automated warehouses has had to speed up. Sadly, tough lockdowns and the infectious spread of COVID has seen many supply chains that were reliant on manual labour crumble and fall apart. Warehouses dependent on manual labour have been crippled for lack of manpower and stringent social distancing laws. At the same time, we have also witnessed some businesses making record profits. These COVID success stories occurred predominantly in businesses that deployed warehouse automation. On top of these dramatic disruptions to warehouse labour utilisation, we have also seen a dramatic shift in the buying patterns of consumers – whose behaviour has adapted suddenly in response to the pandemic and the public health measures it provoked. Consumers staying at home and forced into lockdowns quickly shifted to online buying, and – due to the relative ease of online shopping – they have become accustomed to clicking ‘Order’ on a small screen and expecting purchases to arrive on their doorsteps.
PANDEMIC A WAKE-UP CALL FOR WAREHOUSE AUTOMATION The pandemic has been a big wake-up call for many, serving as a catalyst for automation implementation in warehouses across the world. It is now more evident than ever that automation enables businesses to create robust and sustainable supply chains. Science and technology have 40 | MHD JUNE 2022
progressed by leaps and bounds. There are myriad automation options available to automate warehouses in varying degrees. Technological advances have resulted in many innovative new solutions, as well as rendering existing automation solutions more and more affordable. Yet we still see a lot of warehouses persisting in running manual operations. It’s apparent that some business owners and investors remain hesitant in adopting even a modest degree of automation in their warehouses. This hesitation is not limited to certain regions, either. Many warehouses in both developed and developing countries resist the call to automate. With the practical case for automation more forceful than ever, and automation technology more affordable than ever, what accounts for such inertia? There are various possible explanations, of course. One of the primary reasons for continuing with manual-only warehouse operations is a basic – and very understandable – fear of the unknown. But such natural fears are exacerbated by some common misconceptions. It’s vital that we – not only OPEX, but the whole logistics and supply chain industry, too – tackle these misconceptions head-on. Because automation is indispensable to the future flourishing of supply chains everywhere, to speak nothing of securing the livelihoods of individuals and businesses. A common misconception is that automation is too expensive. Another misconception is that automation takes jobs away from humans. Some other common fears include: • fear regarding the large initial capital investment;
• not knowing where to start; • lack of knowledge/accurate information; • misconception that entire warehouse needs to be automated – or nothing at all. To some, technology is daunting. People often wonder whether automation is too complicated. ‘How will we manage this?’ ‘Will we need very highly skilled resources to run such complicated automation?’ ‘What if the existing workforce is not able to learn new technology methods?’ Then there is the fear of change, unwillingness to change, unwillingness to move out of your comfort zone, and – from an operations perspective – the fear of interruption to existing operations. Such fears are compounded by a fear of not having proper after-sale support and ending with a ‘white elephant’. Lack of proper skills within an organisation, issues in ROI calculations, missing out capturing hidden costs that occur in manual operations are other reasons for this hesitancy in adopting automation.
OPEX DELIVERING NEXT GENERATION TECHNOLOGIES OPEX prides itself in developing next generation innovative technologies. The beauty is in its simplicity. There is no single point of failure in our equipment. There is in-built redundancy that results in a significantly higher machine uptime as compared to conventional competitive solutions. OPEX technologies also consume significantly less electric energy when they run. OPEX offer scalable, flexible and very reliable warehouse automation solutions. Labour cost savings – automation enables a smarter way to deploy/
