FEATURE Automated Warehousing
What are the risks of stock profi le changes to warehouse automation?
Automated Warehousing
Barcode Reading By Dan Migliozzi, Head of Sales at Invar Group A
concern voiced by many businesses looking to adopt warehouse automation is: what happens if stock
profi les change? Commercial survival in a competitive market requires a company to respond and adapt quickly, often with upgrades to existing products or the introduction of entirely new ones. These items may have diff erent profi les – perhaps larger or smaller dimensions and weight, or new packaging characteristics. So, can automation cope with such problems? The risk of changes to stock profi les being
disruptive is low and should be considered in the light of the huge advantages that automation can off er in terms of capacity, speed and service. Of course, it doesn’t mean that radical changes to stock profi les never happen, so it’s crucial to mitigate the risks with careful consideration. Before any investment in automation is made, it’s critical that due diligence is paid to understanding the future objectives and direction of the business. Beyond sales targets and planned promotional peaks, it’s essential to gain insights into the future strategic ambitions, too. Gaining a full understanding of C-suite plans and objectives to a fi ve-year horizon is invaluable in determining the scope and scale of solution that may be required, and any likely radical changes to product profi le should be fl agged up at this stage. Careful analysis of data, aligned to future business expectations, is critical when setting the design parameters of the solution and the degree of fl exibility and scaleability required. Product profi le is just one consideration, order profi les, volumes, capacity and peaks are equally important – if not more so.
automationmagazine.co.uk
However, even if some stock profi les do change over time, there are ways forward. Traditional rigid, fi xed-to-the-fl oor automation is unlikely to off er the agility needed these days. But, thankfully, new technologies, such as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), are transforming fulfi lment operations by off ering far more fl exible and scaleable solutions for goods-to-person order-picking operations. AMR systems combined with pick-to-light technology can boost performance from under 100 units per hour with traditional methods, to up to 400 picks per hour, with an ROI that can be as little as 12 months. As AMRs are used to transport individual mobile shelf units between storage and picking stations, any signifi cant changes to product profi le can be accommodated by simply making adjustments to the required number of mobile shelf units. If the warehouse space permits it, this is a highly- eff ective way of providing fl exibility. And autonomous mobile robot systems have a huge advantage over fi xed systems in that you can simply scale up the operation by adding more robots – increasing the capacity of the system as needed. Having 80 robots working independently in a warehouse is not a problem, as each performs its duties by plotting its own path, following QR codes placed on the warehouse fl oor. Installation is straightforward and fast, and provides a future-proof solution suited to a fast expanding business.
CONTACT:
Invar Group
www.invargroup.com
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Automation | May 2023 29
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