Keep Warehouse Automation Moving with Electrical System Solutions

In today’s automated warehousing industry, Amazon and Walmart have distinctly established themselves as the household names of global consumers. How did they achieve such a demand of consumer usability and market share? They designed an infrastructure so that their customers at the push of a few buttons, could quickly purchase and receive almost anything they want or need without having to step outside their house, except maybe to grab the package they ordered just a few days earlier.

The brilliance of this application is its simplicity and ease of access to its users. What is not so simple is the actual infrastructure itself. Warehouse automation involves so many moving and programmable components that if any of those components are not functioning properly, it disrupts the entire flow of the automated process. From the automated storage and retrieval system and the conveyor system down to the pick and place center, getting inventory sorted, packaged, labeled and shipped properly is a very complex process. Even the cable and electrical system solutions being specified for these components add another level of complexity to ensure the longevity of the system itself and safety for its users. Designing a robust, efficient and competitive automated system is a delicate balance for everyone involved. Once the system is commissioned, the facility operations become almost completely self-sufficient with just ongoing routine maintenance and control station monitoring oversight.

As conveyors and automation components require significant technical aptitude and focus from both designer and supplier, pairing artificial intelligence and robotics with your warehouse automation moves things to another level. Automated guided vehicles can interoperate algorithms, and independently move inventory to and from dedicated areas around the clock. Traditional multi-axis robots pick, sort and place products as well as handle heavier products that employees can’t manage without assistance. This improves not only efficiencies but safety as well.

Amazon has over 520,000 robots working in unison with their automated warehouses and have added over one million jobs worldwide to transform their business. Walmart recently partnered with Symbotic to deploy and retrofit all 42 of its regional distribution centers over the next 10 years with robots. These industry leaders are paving the way in industrial automation, which is starting to see smaller type companies with sizeable warehouses follow suit as it relates to warehouse automation and efficiencies just to stay competitive. The importance of factory floor space, fulfillment process flow, reducing idle and/or downtime, and improving employee safety and efficiencies is critical to these types of business models.

With these factors in play and more within the infrastructure of an automated facility, you also have to be fully prepared to respond to any electrical, mechanical or software issues that can create significant delays to consumers or end users and revenue loss. Robust and sustainable cable systems are key to the life of the automated warehouse, so qualifying and selecting the right component manufacturer and/or electrical system supplier becomes more important than ever. Suppliers who control not only the design quality and manufacturing of their products, but also provide the added value of complete component and electrical system solutions for automated applications quickly rise to the top.

HELUKABEL is a global cable system solutions provider specializing in the production of cables, wires, accessories, cable assemblies, and guidance and protection systems found in equipment used throughout today’s automated warehouses. HELUKABEL offers a wide array of flexible and continuous-flex control, data, network and bus, VFD/servo power and feedback cables to reliably transmit power and data to keep materials on the move.

Our ability to provide cable solutions from bulk cable to complete, plug-and-play cable sub-assemblies makes us the one-stop shop for complete electrical system solutions within the automated warehouse ecosystem.