Warehouse Automation

Warehouses have always been an essential cog in the supply chain, acting as key transition points in the process of taking goods from concept to consumers. Warehouses maintain prominence throughout the supply chain, as storage facilities for the raw materials factories use, as holding areas for cargo unloaded at ports, and especially as distribution and fulfillment centers that organize the final portion of a product’s journey. While warehouses are necessary for the logistics and inventory management of both retail and online shopping, the latter is particularly reliant on efficient warehouse operations to keep the flow of goods moving. With the rapid expansion of ecommerce in the past decade, and with no slowdown in sight, warehouses will need to be continuously upgraded to keep up with consumer demand, and warehouse operations must also be continuously improved. The environmental concerns present on everyone’s mind highlight even more important goals for warehouses of both the near and distant futures, and accentuate the need to adapt to new realities, in both the market and environment. Fortunately, new technologies and systems are emerging to ensure that warehouses can continue to evolve to keep up with growing demands.

Ecommerce and the Increase in Warehouse Reliance

Ecommerce is both the present and the future. The astronomical increase in ecommerce sales and traffic in recent years has already forced warehouses to operate more productively to keep pace with demand. A report by Boston Consulting Group expects ecommerce to account for 41% of retail sales around the world by 2027, a massive jump from the 17% captured in 2017.

Ecommerce offers different challenges for warehouses, specifically distribution centers, than traditional brick and mortar retailers do. The challenges unique to fulfilling online shopping orders have to do mainly with the increase in variation they provide, as distribution centers must process hundreds of individual orders of individual products to individual addresses rather than preparing more bulk-like shipments on preexisting pallets to be sent to brick and mortar stores. There is significantly more processing required to unload pallets and prepare individual products for their last leg of shipment, in addition to the “last mile” complications that await outside the warehouse, than preparing an entire pallet of products to be sent to a store. The extra steps required in processing creates more opportunities for error, and generally slows down warehouse operations, demanding greater worker involvement and attention. This is where automation comes in.

The Role of Automation

As greater strain is placed on warehouses through the ecommerce boom, automation technologies can help warehouses meet ever-growing demand. By improving efficiency, via robotic implementations and operations overhauls, warehouses will be better equipped than ever to keep the flow of goods moving.

Advancements in robotics are especially exciting when it comes to the evolution of warehouses. While some harbor concerns over the potential of automated technologies to replace existing warehouse jobs, the progress being made in the space shows a more collaborative outcome.

The picking process is one such example. Existing robotic technology is somewhat limited in regards to picking, as the non-routine day to day realities of the process can be difficult for current automated systems to compute. For routinized picking responsibilities, automation can take over, but when a variety of products must be picked, current robotic technologies are not yet adaptable enough to efficiently perform this task. Here, we see the potential of human and machine collaboration. Robotic picking systems integrated with AI can create a significantly more efficient process. Guided by a worker directing the robot on which items to pick, picking systems enabled with AI can learn from their human counterparts and adjust to each individual worker’s patterns. Instead of resulting in job losses for people who’ve been employed at a warehouse for years, robots can make them more productive. The worker can direct the robot on which items to pick and in what order, and the AI capabilities of the robot can observe and learn from these directions. Sooner than later, it will recognize potential process improvements and collaborate with the worker to enhance efficiency. By placing the physical strain of picking on robotic systems, warehouse workers will enjoy less taxing and physically demanding roles, while still improving the productivity of their warehouses.

Similarly, exosuits allow workers to be more productive while reducing the physical demands of their jobs. AI incorporated in these exosuits once again functions in a key supportive role, with some technologies already able to identify and enhance specific movements, further limiting the physical strain warehouse workers must endure. AI technologies will also help in accident prevention, with greater collision avoidance capabilities and by providing predictive maintenance for robots and other automated systems. The collaborative element between automation and workers in warehouses is similar to that of ports, where dockworkers can transition into less dangerous work while improving port efficiency. Soon, the days of warehouse workers logging 25,000 steps during their shift will be gone, and they will move to less intensive roles. Warehouses of the future must be adaptable, capable of handling volatility and variations in cargo loads, and the collaboration between automated systems and workers will enable this necessary adaptability.

Operations management tools integrated with AI can also greatly improve warehouse efficiency. Digital twins technologies have shown tremendous promise, and could prove revolutionary in terms of warehouse visibility. The data digital twins are able to process are significantly more effective than historical data, as they can process site-specific data, which is inherently more informative and accurate than general historical data gathered across sites. This allows for greater systems optimization. The EU has been keen on this space, and has invested heavily in the development of digital twins. Other cloud-based operations and management systems offer greater visibility for stakeholders across the supply chain, allowing customers to more easily track the goods they are expecting. This helps improve communication and expectation fulfillment between parties. By having greater visibility and better integrated tracking and management systems, warehouse operators are better prepared to share information with their clients and improve internal productivity. More open cloud-based systems allow for greater visibility across the supply chain, by being able to be integrated with outside systems. In all, these developments make warehouses run more efficiently, and are a boon to creating more effective supply chains.