Imagine slashing your warehouse workforce costs by nearly half, adding around the clock shifts that could potentially double your productivity and having instant availability of troves of real-time metrics on every aspect of your operation. Warehouse robotics systems can help you reshape your business, lowering expenditures, boosting output and enhancing efficiency.
Types of Warehouse Robots
While a few of warehouse robotics solutions have been around for many years, others are bleeding edge engineering marvels that could possibly fundamentally change the warehousing and distribution business as we know it. The principal categories of robotics system are:
Articulated Robotic Arms: Robotic arms with multiple joints can pick up and move goods in a warehouse. They’re commonly used for receiving tasks, such as moving goods from pallets to shelving, or in production settings, for picking and packing.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Unmanned aerial vehicles, more frequently referred to as drones, can provide instantaneous inventory data in a warehouse by leveraging RFID technology.
Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) : AS/RS can retrieve inventory from racks and return items to their correct storage positions. Examples of AS/RS solutions are horizontal or vertical carousel systems, aisle cranes and pallet shuttle systems.
Goods-to-Person technology (G2P): In lieu of using people to pick items from racks and bins, G2P technology uses robots to deliver items to picking stations, where operators are positioned to complete orders as products are delivered.
Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) : AGVs, including self-driving carts, pallet jacks or forklifts, transfer goods between locations within a warehouse. Cart based AGVs are sometimes referred to as Automatic Guided Carts, or AGCs.
Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) : Similar to AGVs and AGCs, AMRs can transfer goods throughout a facility autonomously. Unlike AGCs and AGVs, which move along stationary paths often controlled by wire tracks or magnetic strips, AMRs rely on maps, cameras and sensors to navigate non-static routes by analyzing their surroundings.
Applications For Warehouse Robots
In the past, robotic applications in distribution centers and warehouses, warehouses and distribution centers were restricted to a handful of jobs. As technology has evolved, robotic capabilities have flourished and they can now be applied to almost any requirement in a warehouse:
Loading and unloading: Although complete automation of loading and unloading trailers is not yet a realistic possibility, automated systems like AGVs and conveyors can be added to optimize your loading dock operations.
Palletizing and de-palletizing: Robotic systems are ideal for monotonous, repetitious tasks like palletizing. These types of robots typically employ a dedicated End-of-Arm Tool to pick up units and position them on a pallet. They’re frequently coupled with conveyor systems that feed products to the palletizing area.
Sorting: Robotic sortation systems must have the ability to select items, ID them and deposit them in the proper bin or storage slot. As goods advance along a conveyor, these robots use cameras to recognize individual items and pick them out.
Picking: Most of the human labor expenses in a warehouse originate from order picking activities, and robotic picking tehnologies have been around for decades to help tackle this issue. However, modern robotic picking technologies offer increased speed, better accuracy, enhanced efficiency and superior value versus systems of even a few years ago.
Packaging: Robotic solutions are well suited for repetitive and monotonous functions like packaging. They may also be put to use for more complicated tasks like weighing, dimensioning and cartonizing.
Transportation: Robotic transportation systems have wide-scale use in warehouses, from simple AGVs / AGCs to AMRs and conveyor systems that are integrated with AS/RS.
Storage: AS/RS implementations emoby a variety of warehouse robots, including mini-load systems, cranes and pallet shuttles. AS/RS is also sometimes used in conjunction with mobile racking systems to make the most of space utilization.
Delivery: Major e-com companies are conducting research on autonomous delivery drones, self-driving trucks and other advanced options that will revolutionize home and warehouse delivery options in the near future.
Replenishment: Leveraging RFID to monitor inventory, warehouse drones can scan barcode labels up to 50% faster than manual scanning and send inventory counts back to the warehouse management system in real time.
Industrial Robotics Companies Near Me
To find out more about industrial robotic solutions for your business, speak with an automation expert at Welch Equipment today!
