Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.64
August 30, 2017
…Ysasi. “When you have fulfillment centers with all active inventory, where basically every piece is available at any possible time to get picked, packed and shipped, you’ve just opened yourself up really decreasing cycle time,” he says. Think lean Some DCs may rely heavily on a major piece of automation to attain a pick rate, but for most DCs, the key to throughput is balance between pick, pack and ship operations, says Dan Hanrahan, CEO of The Numina Group. “I look at order fulfillment as a three-legged stool of picking, packing and shipping,” he says. “If any one of those…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.62
September 16, 2020
…one of Northern Europe’s leading retailers, it is “a world-class facility that we use as a precision tool for inventory management to deliver the correct items to our stores, when they need them,” Eriksson says. “And, we have the warehouse capacity we need for the foreseeable future. We no longer talk about the limitations of our supply chain, just about how well everything runs.”
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.58
February 12, 2019
…working on a project to use drones to take inventory in its facilities. But, in its e-commerce picking operations, it still relied heavily on conventional pick processes such as pick-to-cart enabled by wearable wrist units and a warehouse management system (WMS). In early 2017, the 3PL concluded that conventional was no longer sustainable, according to McDonald. That spring, GEODIS put together an innovation team to investigate new technologies. Important criteria included: the capital investment required, was it user friendly and easy to operate, was it scalable and finally, was it mobile—if necessary, how easily could GEODIS move a solution from…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.56
February 08, 2021
…such visibility. “Only a minority have real-time supply chain inventory visibility,” says, Ashwani Nath, global head of e-channel solutions at GEODIS. “However, this visibility is essential to ensuring product availability, offering a variety of shipping choices, and informing the customer of the product’s shipping status. Behind the scenes, this means optimizing the logistics cost for each order and overcoming many logistical challenges, such as reconciling the physical with the digital, maintaining a real-time inventory and managing transportation.” The last-minute deal Between pandemic worries and the e-commerce boom, another topic was in focus at the end of the year: the Brexit…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.56
October 13, 2015
…a complex operating environment. The logistics center manages an inventory of about 50,000 SKUs at any given time. However, due to the complexity of the machines manufactured by Grob, there are as many as 1.9 million material master records, and the company adds about 500 new part numbers each day. Many of those SKUs will only be used for one job, and then not used again. To create more space, Grob began storing some material outside the logistics center, which meant coordinating the delivery of those materials to the logistics center with parts and materials stored on site. Other work…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.55
March 02, 2020
…the fulfillment center. The other is orders that include inventory not stocked in North Haven. At that point, “the number of factors will determine how an order like this gets fulfilled,” says Walker, adding that “the number one factor will be customer preference.” If a customer has chosen to receive items as they’re ready to ship, then Amazon may send multiple boxes to meet the promised delivery time. If a customer has chosen to receive items in one box, then the items will be merged at another fulfillment center, like the facility in nearby Windsor, and then go through the…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.55
September 04, 2022
…from manual process management is the top reason for inventory fulfillment problems. This includes picking errors, errors handling equipment, lack of information, etc. Such errors cause returns of products by customers, which increases the time and resources consumed in warehouses. The use of collaborative robots for picking can reduce picking errors by 67%. The study also cited technologies such as pick-to-voice, pick-to-light, and RFID (radio frequency identification). 4. Mobile robots can improve materials handling Lockheed Martin implemented AMRs from 6 River Systems Inc. to improve material handling. The defense contractor is in an industry with very limited players and unique…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.55
May 13, 2021
…the company resorted to keeping a week’s worth of inventory on-site, taking up valuable production space and increasing working capital. Yet, despite the time, effort and financial investment in the process, the scrappage rate was still around 11%. On-site automated vacuum impregnation system The company turned to Ultraseal International, a leader in sealing porosity and leak paths in die-cast, sintered, and electrical components. Ultraseal said its engineers worked with the manufacturer to design and install a fully automated, robotic, vacuum impregnation system. The custom system offered fast cycle times, improved productivity, cost-effectiveness, more reliable sealing rates, and improved environmental performance,…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.53
July 23, 2021
From materials handling to inventory and floor cleaning, autonomous mobile robots are finding more uses beyond factories and warehouses. Brain Corp. has developed the BrainOS software-as-a-service offering to provide autonomy and reporting features to more than 16,000 robots and logged over 4.9 million hours of operation. The San Diego, Calif.-based company was founded in 2009, and its customers include Walmart, Kroger, and the Mall of America. Denver Public Schools, one of the largest school districts in the U.S., plans to use Tennant Co. floor scrubbers with BrainOS, starting with 14 buildings. Brain recently hired Jon Thomason as its new chief…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.49
May 17, 2018
…with the warehouse,” says Garber. “If the velocity of inventory going in and out of your warehouse slows down, your supply chain slows down. If the warehouse can up its game, then the whole supply chain gets better.” Like Zebra and JDA, EVS has one team working on product development and support, and a second “Black Ops” team comprised of people whose job is to figure out where EVS should go next. “They work on prototypes and when they get to a certain percentage complete, we’ll float trial balloons to analysts like Garter or our customers for feedback,” Garber says.…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.46
May 14, 2021
…do it all, they can get best-in-class systems for inventory, floor scrubbing, or materials handling,” said InOrbit's Pestoni. “You get very quickly from one vendor and one task to multiple tasks and robots.” “We already have multiple robots, including tuggers, pallet trucks, and counterbalanced forklifts,” said Vecna's Theobald. “It doesn't make sense for each robot manufacturer to integrate or for each WMS or WES [warehouse execution system] vendor to be expert in every robot,” Pestoni said. “We provide a thin orchestration layer in the cloud, and the system knows what needs to be done. It uses an API [application programming…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 1.42
February 01, 2018
…scenes, these systems require an accurate, real-time view of inventory across the company’s warehouse and store network, together with fast picking and packing operations ready for that on-demand last-mile delivery. According to Knut Alicke, a partner in McKinsey’s Stuttgart office, supply chain technology development has entered “a most exciting” phase. “Available and emerging solutions have the potential to transform the speed, flexibility, and efficiency of organization’s existing processes, and to enable entirely new business models and service offerings,” says Alicke. “For global shippers, the challenges lie in understanding which solutions will work for them, and in implementing those solutions faster…
