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“Advances in automation technology can not only drive businesses through the tough times, but also provide a solid foundation to weather the storms of the future.”
problems, but when adding a bigger battery in order to last the shift, the truck may not necessarily fit down the aisle. With organisations working longer and harder than ever before with 24x7 operations – particularly during peak Covid times – it’s important to be able to utilise trucks longer without the compromise being on battery replacements, aisle width or battery life. Organisations are under pressure to perform harder and faster than ever before so the tools they rely on need to be able to support these increasing pressures.
To combat this issue, the introduction of lithium-ion battery technology has helped to transform the warehouse and material-handling equipment industry. With lithium-ion-powered reach trucks using the latest in battery technology, the battery size doesn’t change depending on the capacity – ensuring no restriction of movement down narrow aisles. Furthermore, users can ‘opportunity charge’, instead of relying on long charging times or a larger battery.
Changing environments Covid-19 has brought new challenges to the table too, but has importantly highlighted the benefits of fully or partially automated processes and operations. With local lockdown restrictions in place, workers encouraged to work from home if they can, isolation where necessary and strict social distancing measures, the warehouse environment has changed significantly. Businesses are unable to rely as much on high levels of human resources, and the downturn in the economy has been an accelerator to the already escalating demand for automation.
This evolution has been
especially prevalent in some of the key industries such as pharmaceuticals and logistics, ensuring continuity in aspects such as food supply chains so that retailers can continue to keep stocks at optimum levels. This was particularly challenging in the early stages of the pandemic when panic buying led to shortages of certain items but with automation creating efficiencies and speeding up processes, these challenges were quickly overcome.
homeofdirectcommerce.com | Direct Commerce
Even for industries and environments where full automation isn’t possible or necessary, key aspects of processes can be automated for a hybrid approach – ensuring the most optimum levels of efficiency across every role and requirement. Further, once lockdown measures are eased and human resources are employed in automated environments, productivity will become higher as humans take on more value adding roles and automation takes on the repetitive functions within the warehouse environment. This will remove the element of human error from many processes and ultimately mean that operations can continue with much-increased productivity, resulting in lean and efficient logistic processes and supply chains.
The future holds the next steps for automation too, with innovations already providing warehouse environments with self driving trucks, for example, which are growing massively in popularity. For those businesses that already operate a
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