Balancing the interaction between operators and technology is often an overlooked concept of rolling out new or improving processes in the warehouse.  Too often, technology is thrown into the mix in hopes of “improving” a process and eventually leads to costly inefficiencies or preventing process improvement due to technology dead-ends.  Understanding what technology is available, how it can be applied, and how it helps improve operations is not only a key component of the buying cycle, but for process improvement as well.  How can you apply people, processes, and technology together in order to drive operational improvements?  You need technology that can quickly be integrated into your processes so that you don’t feel limited in the changes you can make to improve those processes.  And you need a technology that can be easily utilized and managed by your workforce, without weeks of training, or even worse, separating them from the technology and creating inefficiencies.

 

Robotic trucks are designed to easily integrate with your existing operations in order to rapidly reduce your costs across your operations.  From Putaway to staging, to case picking and cross-docking, the goal of your fleet of robots is to maintain the velocity of product going through your warehouse in order to keep up with customer demand without adding more space or more labor.  Your demand ebbs and flows and you need a system that can grow and scale with your demand without hindering process change or interfering with your workforce. 

 

Increasing the flow of product from receiving through shipping is the key to sustaining supply chain effectiveness and ultimately customer satisfaction.  Many companies continue to re-evaluate the flow of product from the supplier through to the customer in hopes of minimizing the number of touches and the amount of time spent in transition or storage. 

Today’s supply chain leaders continue to work hard in order to optimize the demand flow from the point of consumption back through the point of supply in order to decrease the cost of inventory, transportation, and service.  By optimizing the time to re-stock the point of consumption, many companies are able to fill their supply chain with synchronized supply without the need to stock large quantities in warehouses.  For many companies, increasing the inventory turns helps minimize the amount of space needed and can even expand the size or types of markets served.

 

Improving processes inside the warehouse is critical to decreasing the cost across the supply chain and keeping up with the ebb and flow of supply and demand signals.  Starting from the receiving process, it’s important to focus on delivering as much of the inbound product directly to the outbound side of the process in order to rapidly respond to demand without raising storage costs.

 

The most immediate opportunity for deploying robotic trucks is in Putaway.  While increasing quantities of the product received can be broken down for outbound processing directly at the dock, the majority of product is still required to be putaway in order to support the fulfillment side of the business.  Regardless of whether the product coming into a facility is cross-docked or flows through directly to outbound orders, or is putaway in storage locations, removing the congestion at the dock is vital to maintaining the flow of product through the warehouse.

It’s these activities that create the most immediate opportunity for Industrial Mobile Robots to reduce the dependence on manned-travel and facilitate the movement of product to the next stage in the fulfillment process, quickly and reliably, without increasing space or staffing.  In many cases, the use of robotic pallet trucks can reduce the amount of manned-travel in the putaway process by up to 80%, helping reduce staffing imbalance and provide a more continuous and reliable flow of product from the dock.  In support of in-aisle processes like letdowns, replenishments and putaway, the use of robotic pallet jacks for running pallets from the dock can increase the pallets-per-hour for hi-lift operators by up to 60%. 

These numbers make it extremely compelling to utilize the power of robots to drive process improvement to better utilize your facility and your people.  The control is now back in your hands to balance your people, your processes and your robots to maximize your results.