What if you could slash your warehouse workforce costs by nearly half, add 24 hour shifts that squeeze even more production out of your facility and have instant availability to troves of live data on all aspects of your material handling operation? Warehouse robotics systems can help you redefine your business, reducing expenditures, increasing output and amplifying profitability.

Types of Warehouse Robots

Although some types of warehouse robotics systems have been in use for decades, others are state-of-the-art technologies that may disrupt the warehousing industry as we know it. The main categories of robotics system are:

Articulated Robotic Arms: Robotic arms with multiple joints can lift and move products in a warehouse. They're often used for receiving operations, such as relocating products from pallets to shelving, or in production environments, for picking, packing and shipping.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Unmanned aerial vehicles, more commonly referred to as drones, can deliver real-time inventory data in a warehouse through the use of RFID technology.

Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) : AS/RS can retrieve products from racks and put items in 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): Rather than using human labor to pick items from bins and racks, G2P systems use robots to dispense products to picking stations, where workers are positioned to fill orders as goods are delivered.

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) : AGVs, such as self-driving forklifts, carts or pallet jacks, transfer inventory from one area to another within a warehouse. Cart based AGVs are often referred to as Automatic Guided Carts, or AGCs.

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) : Similar to AGCs and AGVs, Autonomous Mobile Robots can move goods throughout a facility autonomously. In contrast to AGCs and AGVs, which traverse predetermined paths often controlled by wire tracks or magnetic strips, AMRs make use of maps, cameras and sensors to maneuver frequently changing routes by evaluating their surroundings.

Applications For Warehouse Robots

For many years, robotic applications in distribution centers and warehouses, warehouses and distribution centers were restricted to a small number of taks. As technology has evolved, robotic capabilities have exploded and they can now be used for nearly any requirement in a warehouse:

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

Palletizing and de-palletizing: Robotic systems are perfect for monotonous, recurrent tasks like palletizing. These types of robots normally employ a dedicated End-of-Arm Tool to grab products and place them on a pallet. They're frequently used in combination with with conveyors that transport products to the palletizing area.

Sorting: Robotic sortation systems must be able to grab objects, identify them and put them in a suitable storage slot or bin. As goods advance along a conveyor, these systems use cameras to identify individual items and select them.

Picking: The vast majority of workforce expenses in a warehouse originate from order picking activities, and robotic picking tehnologies have been around for many years to help tackle this problem. However, today's robotic picking solutions offer greater speed, improved accuracy, more efficiency and superior value as compared to systems of just a few years ago.

Packaging: Robotic solutions are well suited for recurrent and monotonous functions like packaging. They may also be used for more complex jobs like weighing, dimensioning and cartonizing.

Transportation: Robotic transportation systems are widely used in warehouses, from simple AGCs/AGVs to AMRs and conveyor systems that are integrated with AS/RS.

Storage: AS/RS implementations include a variety of warehouse robots, including pallet shuttles, mini-load systems and cranes. AS/RS is also sometimes used together with mobile racking systems to make the most of storage density.

Delivery: Leading e-com companies are conducting research on self-driving trucks, autonomous delivery drones and other advanced options that will transform last mile delivery options in the coming years.

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

Industrial Robotics Companies Near Me

To find out more about industrial robotic solutions for your business, talk to an automation expert at Raymond West today!

Raymond West's Orange County service area includes Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Orange, Santa Ana, Tustin and all surrounding areas.

Raymond West | Orange County Material Handling Equipment Supplier

Orange County, CA
(714) 790-9300