How would it affect your business if you could slash your warehouse workforce costs by nearly half, add 24 x 7 shifts that significantly boost your production capacity and have access to troves of up to the minute information on every aspect of your material handling operation? Warehouse robotics systems can help you redefine your business, lowering expenditures, boosting output and strengthening efficiency.

Types of Warehouse Robots

While some types of warehouse robotics systems have been around for a very long time, others are cutting-edge engineering marvels that may disrupt the distribution and warehousing industry as we know it. The main 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 applied to receiving functions, like relocating products from pallets to racks, or in production environments, for picking, packing and shipping.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Unmanned aerial vehicles, more frequently know as drones, can maintain real-time inventory visibility within warehouses by leveraging RFID technology.

Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) : AS/RS can collect goods from bins and put items in their correct storage slots. Examples of AS/RS solutions are horizontal or vertical carousel systems, aisle cranes and pallet shuttle systems.

Goods-to-Person technology (G2P): Rather than using human labor to pick items from racks and bins, G2P systems use robots to supply products to picking stations, where operators are positioned to fill orders as products are delivered.

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) : AGVs, such as self-driving pallet jacks, forklift or carts, transfer inventory from one location to another inside a warehouse. Cart based AGVs are sometimes called Automatic Guided Carts, or AGCs.

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) : Similar to AGCs and AGVs, Autonomous Mobile Robots can transfer products across a warehouse autonomously. In contrast to AGCs and AGVs, which travel stationary paths often directed by wire tracks or magnetic strips, AMRs make use of cameras, maps and sensors to maneuver non-static routes by evaluating their environment.

Applications For Warehouse Robots

Until recently, robotic applications in warehouses were limited to a small number of jobs. As technology has advanced, robotic capabilities have flourished and they can now be used for nearly any requirement in a warehouse:

Loading and unloading: Although full automation of loading and unloading trucks is not yet a possibility, automated systems like conveyors and AGVs can be employed to enhance your loading dock speed.

Palletizing and de-palletizing: Robotic systems are perfect for tedious, repetitive functions like palletizing. Palletizizing robots generally employ a dedicated End-of-Arm Tool to pick up products and position them on a pallet. They're often paired with conveyors that transport products to the palletizing area.

Sorting: Robotic sortation systems must have the ability to select products, recognize them and place them in an appropriate bin or storage slot. As items move along a conveyor, these systems use cameras to recognize individual items and pick them out.

Picking: Most of the human labor costs in a warehouse originate from order picking functions, and robotic picking tehnologies have been around for quite some time to help resolve this problem. Nevertheless, contemporary robotic picking systems offer greater speed, improved accuracy, enhanced efficiency and superior value as compared to systems of just a few years ago.

Packaging: Robotic solutions are well suited for recurrent and tedious 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 AGCs/AGVs to AMRs and conveyor systems that are integrated with AS/RS.

Storage: AS/RS implementations include many types of warehouse robots, including pallet shuttles, mini-load systems and cranes. AS/RS is also sometimes used in conjunction with mobile racking systems to maximize storage density.

Delivery: Large e-com companies are experimenting with autonomous delivery drones, self-driving trucks and other technologies that will revolutionize last mile delivery options in the next decade.

Replenishment: Leveraging RFID to keep track of inventory, warehouse drones can survey barcode labels in half the time of manual scanning and send stock information back to the WMS instantaneously.

Industrial Robotics Companies Near Me

If would would like to learn more about industrial robotic solutions for your business, speak with an automation expert at Raymond West today!

Raymond West's Boise service center serves most of Idaho, including Boise, Nampa, Meridian, Idaho Falls, Caldwell, Pocatello, Twin Falls, Post Falls and surrounding areas.

Raymond West | Boise Material Handling Equipment Supplier

743 W McGregor Ct #100
Boise, ID 83705
(800) 675-2500