With recalls taking center stage in today’s media, manufacturers must closely evaluate the cost of poor quality (CoPQ) to their business. CoPQ is typically defined as the costs that would disappear if your manufacturing process was perfect. These costs include lost goodwill and expenses incurred from replacement, refund, rework, and scrapping. It has been estimated that CoPQ amounts to approximately 5% to 30% of a manufacturer’s gross sales. This means CoPQ is costing manufacturers millions per year and therefore every executive should recognize that quality must be addressed to remain competitive. In industries where the price of product is the…
“Perfect Pick will change the way the market approaches each picking operations,” said Jeff Hedges, president, OPEX Material Handling. “It automates warehouse and distribution center operations with greater speed, accuracy and reliability than ever before.” Perfect Pick’s “one-touch” design is based on iBOT technology—intelligent, wireless vehicles that have 100% access to the inventory in a single aisle. Unlike other shuttle systems that must rely on lifts, conveyors or transfers, said Hedges, iBOTs travel around inside the storage rack at industry-leading rates, picking and stocking inventory simultaneously. They are capable of delivering totes or trays directly to the picking station located…
To build mixed pallet loads from an unlimited number of stock keeping units (SKUs), Axium’s (Booth 4823) load palletizer uses an exclusive algorithm, a vision-assisted product orientor, two synchronized robot arms and an automatically adjusting end-of-arm tool. The system attains rates up to 1,750 cases per hour. Based on CubeIQ software to process orders received from a warehouse management system (WMS), the system first determines the most efficient palletizing sequence based on various criteria (including product weight and dimensions, case strength and stability). Prior to picking, cases are oriented using a vision-assisted product orientor. Then, two robot arms alternatively pick…
Utilizing flexible gripper fork technology to manipulate four to six mixed cases simultaneously, and accurately stack them on a pallet, is the Mixed Case Row Palletizing (MXRP) robot-based palletizer from Grenzebach (Booth 7913). The gripper works with a load station that groups the cases in the proper sequence. It then elevates the products, allowing the forks to gently lift the packages from the bottom, explained Brian Keiger, general industry sales manager. “The forks can be adjusted both horizontally and vertically, letting the device handle various package types, including open top cases,” he said. The gripper works with software that builds…
