EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS ROBOTS IN RETAIL:
Automated warehouses change the pace for online grocery shop
MHL speaks to Sid Shaikh, product development manager at Ocado Engineering, about the company’s latest work in designing and building state-of-the-art automated warehouses to significantly improve the logistics of its online delivery service
T
he grocery retail market, and the online segment more specifically, are
highly competitive - therefore many companies are looking to use automation to improve efficiency and profitability. However, while typical bricks and mortar grocery supermarkets might be using dark stores or networks of smaller depots, Ocado’s business model has been built on centralised fulfilment using large-scale, highly-automated facilities called Customer Fulfilment Centres (CFCs).
WHAT IS THIS NEW BRANCH OF THE OCADO BUSINESS? Over the past decade, we have extended our in-house expertise in automation, both in terms of software and hardware capabilities. We have proven that we can design, build and operate smart facilities capable of picking millions of products daily and from a much wider product range than traditional supermarkets. Our warehouse automation successfully functions to deliver higher throughputs, better order accuracy and improved picking efficiency compared to the traditional bricks and mortar retail model. When building our first Ocado Smart
Platform CFC, there was no existing template so we had no choice but to build most of the technology ourselves. By developing our automation solutions in- house we have achieved tight inventory control, efficient use of warehouse space, minimised product handling and maximised product shelf life.
WHAT TECHNOLOGY IS INVOLVED? Ocado has a broad and deep technology stack and is always pushing the boundaries of engineering. In terms of software, we have teams working on machine learning and cloud applications, mobile app development, embedded and automation control, complex large scale simulation and modelling, supply chain software and more.
S12 JULY/AUGUST 2017 | MATERIALS HANDLING & LOGISTICS
systems run based on a “just in time” stock control model. This ensures the right products enter and leave our facilities in the right quantities and at exactly the right time. We track millions of products down to the individual item and its shelf life. Our online customers can therefore choose from a range of 50,000 items from our webshop, delivered to them within a guaranteed one hour slot. In our Hatfield and Dordon facilities,
this product flow is achieved over facilities the size of five football pitches spanning five floors, over a network of conveyors that is 25 miles long. 8,000 crates are on the move at any one time and more than 14 million items can be picked every week. Our latest facility in Andover features an even more advanced system called the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP). OSP includes a super dense storage hive and an army of thousands of robots controlling the product flow to pick a 50-item order in a few minutes. We believe the OSP robot hive represents the future of retail logistics.
Hardware-wise, we are looking
particularly at wireless communications, battery and EV charging technology, high tolerance and high volume manufacturing, complex motion control systems, large scale safety systems, advanced robotics, high speed picking, or large scale temperature management to give but a few examples. In fact, when walking into one of our CFCs, one would immediately recognise many of the Industry 4.0 applications at work, spanning robotics, AI, big data and IoT.
HOW DOES THIS CONTRIBUTE TO THE FLOW OF MOVING GOODS? Our CFCs are some of the largest and most sophisticated warehouses for online grocery in the world. To achieve this, our
Ocado CFCs (customer fulfillment centres) in Hatfield and Dordon using conveyor belt- based automation
Footage from Andover’s CFC captured after the warehouse went live in December 2016
HOW DO DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE SYSTEM COMMUNICATE? One of the most interesting examples of industrial communication systems can be seen at work at our Andover CFC. Because existing mobile communications technologies did not offer real-time control or scalability, Ocado has developed a wireless communication system based on 4G telecoms technology deployed in the unlicensed 5GHz band. This allows us to coordinate thousands of fast moving hive robots to within a fraction of a second. The wireless system represents the densest mobile network in the world and enables us to communicate with each robot 10 times a second. To ensure the highest levels of user safety, we developed a wireless safety system capable of disabling thousands of robots to a SIL 3 safety performance level. We have developed and utilise highly intelligent data management systems to gather, analyse and mine vast amounts of performance critical information to attain the high performance levels required to meet the scale of throughput of our facilities.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS? Our technology platform has helped maintain superior customer service levels with on time delivery at 95 per cent and order accuracy at 98.9 per cent. Our efficiency also means we are kinder on the environment: we have fewer sites so our carbon footprint is smaller than a traditional supermarket.
/ MATERIALSHANDLINGLOGISTICS
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