What if you could reduce your warehouse labor expenditures by 50% or more, add 24 hour shifts that squeeze even more production out of your facility and have access to troves of up to the minute information on every aspect of your operation? Warehouse robotics systems can help you redefine your business, slashing expenses, boosting output and amplifying efficiency.

Types of Warehouse Robots

Although a few of warehouse robotics systems have been in use for a very long time, others are state-of-the-art engineering marvels that may disrupt the distribution and warehousing industry as we know it. The primary classifications of robotics system are:

Articulated Robotic Arms: Robotic arms with multiple joints can pick up and move items in a warehouse. They're often used for receiving tasks, like relocating goods 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 instantaneous inventory data within warehouses by using RFID technology.

Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) : AS/RS can pick up goods from racks and deposit products in their correct storage slots. Examples of AS/RS solutions are cranes that retrieve goods between aisles, vertical or horizontal carousel systems and shuttle systems.

Goods-to-Person technology (G2P): In place of using human labor to pick items from racks and bins, G2P solutions employ robots to dispense products to picking stations, where employees are stationed to fill orders as items are delivered.

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) : AGVs, including self-driving carts, pallet jacks or forklifts, transport inventory from one location to another within a warehouse. Cart based AGVs are sometimes called Automatic Guided Carts, or AGCs.

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) : Similar to AGCs and AGVs, AMRs can move items throughout a warehouse autonomously. Unlike AGCs and AGVs, which move along predetermined routes often directed by wire tracks or magnetic strips, AMRs rely on maps, cameras and sensors to negotiate frequently changing routes by analyzing their environment.

Applications For Warehouse Robots

In the past, robotic applications in warehouses were restricted to a small number of jobs. As technology has improved, robotic capabilities have exploded and they can now be applied to almost any function in a warehouse:

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

Palletizing and de-palletizing: Robotic systems are perfect for tedious, repetitive work like palletizing. These types of robots generally employ a specific End-of-Arm Tool to pick up products and set them on a pallet. They're frequently used in combination with with conveyor systems that transport items to the palletizing area.

Sorting: Robotic sortation systems must be able to grab objects, ID them and place them in an appropriate storage slot or bin. As items pass by on a conveyor, these systems use cameras to track specific items and pick them out.

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

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

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

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

Delivery: Major e-commerce businesses are conducting research on self-driving trucks, autonomous delivery drones and other technologies that will fundamentally change home and warehouse delivery options in the next decade.

Replenishment: Leveraging RFID to keep track of inventory, warehouse drones can scan 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, get in touch with an automation expert at Raymond West today!

Raymond West's Sacramento facility serves the greater Sacramento area and other parts of Northern California, including Sacramento, Elk Grove, Auburn, Placerville, Vacaville, Fairfield, Sausalito, Napa, Santa Rosa, Redding, Eureka and all surrounding areas.

Raymond West | Sacramento Material Handling Equipment Supplier

900 National Dr
Sacramento, CA 95834
(800) 675-2500