Inside Auto ID: Robotics and Automation
Robots conjure up visions of a futuristic age, but automated machines are already a reality in warehouse and logistics environments around the world. From point-to-point to goods-to-person solutions, the ability of technologies like Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) to increase picking times – some up to 800 lines an hour – is impressive.
It’s an exciting area and perfectly aligned with Brother’s Auto ID technologies. Identification is crucial even to the most advanced AMR solutions, and the role of the humble barcode label and the printing solutions that produce it seems set to evolve and expand with automation’s need for scannable data.
Further benefits, including accuracy and flexibility, support the case for automation, but there is an element of necessity, too. Resourcing challenges have increased in the last twenty years, and eliminating ‘dead’ time spent walking to locations in a warehouse or distribution centre has become essential for companies to remain competitive.
Jamie Mottershead, the Technical Director of Renovotec, describes three types of automation and AMR technology. The collaborative robot, as the name suggests, is one used alongside a conventional workforce. Health and safety is protected by SLAM technology (Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping), which controls the robot’s movement from point to point.
A goods-to-person solution offers perhaps the greatest productivity gains. Robots take boxes of products and even pallets from a shelf and bring them to the picker, saving precious time that might otherwise be lost as the operator navigates the warehouse. Sortation solutions sort goods and parcels into a designated area.
All three technologies can be integrated into an existing Warehouse Management System (WMS). Typically, the WMS owns and manages the process to a certain point, after which the robots are tasked with execution. Preserving clear boundaries prevents any overlap of the operational requirements, which can differ, depending on the solution.
Robots are intended to support a conventional workforce rather than to replace it. The warehouse, even of 2030, is unlikely to be a people-free environment. Rather, the true value of automation and AMR technologies is realised by freeing humans to focus on more sophisticated tasks while robots fetch and carry.
The opportunity to work with such advanced solutions could make a definite appeal to members of a tech-savvy generation accustomed to smartphones and tablets. From being an uninspiring, if essential, business area, the introduction of automated technologies could propel distribution and warehousing to the forefront of a company’s technical operations.
Infrastructure requirements, such as floor space, are critical. Use of the technology has grown rapidly in large countries like Australia and the USA. Robots, naturally, require a flat surface, often labelled with QR codes providing navigational information. Further, these ‘Wi-Fi hungry’ devices require a network capable of managing intense demand.
Businesses are gaining confidence in a technology that might once have belonged to science fiction. With a growing body of research to evidence the benefits of using robots alongside a conventional workforce, companies are exploring tactical deployments and end-to-end solutions. The automated future of warehousing and distribution has already begun.
Learn more about Brother's Auto ID solutions here.
