More companies are exploring ways to staff warehouses with robots, but it may have to wait a few years for the technology to catch on.
More than a fifth of warehouse operators have invested in automation address to help labor shortageespecially when they worked to handle Growing e-commerce orders during the pandemic. Some companies are exploring full automation which requires few employees. These “lights out” or “dark” warehouses are called because the robots do not require as much light as humans—the larger size requires an initial cost, however, and still faces the limitations of robotic technology. This includes the ability to pick up a variety of objects. item cleverly.
Operators and executives say a cost-benefit analysis in the current hiring market is prompting some warehouse operators to investigate ways to increase automation.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wage for US workers in the warehousing and storage industry was $43,820 as of May 2021, the most recent data available, up from $41,110 in May 2019.
“You have a combination of insufficient people and very expensive people. It makes automation very easy to justify,” said Sean Wallingford, president and chief executive of the Americas region for warehouse technology company Swisslog Holding AG. “So I think we Will continue to see the push towards that.”
In 2019, German online pharmacy company Apo.com Group opened a 220,000-square-foot warehouse in the Netherlands that uses automation to handle 25,000 to 30,000 orders a day, with about 20 employees on each of three shifts. Company founder and former chief executive Michael Fritsch said the company has invested more than $100 million in building and automation.
Mr. Fritsch said that a manual warehouse would need roughly 400 employees and nearly double the square footage to fulfill the same number of orders. They have to hire licensed pharmacy professionals for those roles and face challenges in finding the number of qualified people and paying their high salaries, he said.
“You don’t get that amount of pharmacists in one city, so that’s the problem,” he said. “We wouldn’t be able to do this without [the robots],
The warehouse uses robotic picking arms from Righthand Robotics Inc. of Somerville, Mass., which are capable of picking 97% of the pharmacy’s inventory given the relatively uniform size of items, Mr. Fritsch said.
A robotic arm picks up and packs orders from an automated warehouse at online pharmacy company Apo.com in the Netherlands.
picture:
righthand robotics
According to research firm Interactive Analysis, nearly 20% of warehouses will use some form of robotics in 2022, up from 15% in 2018. One of the most elusive challenges in the development of warehouse automation is training robots to mimic human hand movements so that they can handle customer orders of all shapes and sizes.
Luke Jensen, chief executive of Ocado Solutions, the grocery partnership division of the technology provider
Individual items are still largely being bagged for delivery manually at company warehouses. Ocado Group is teaming up with the grocery giant
hooks Co.
But building automated fulfillment centers around america
Mr. Jensen said that training a robotic arm to pick up about 50,000 different types of grocery items in all types of packaging is complex.
Ocado experienced three fires in three years in its warehouses caused by robots colliding, an electrical fault in a battery-charging unit and a waste-packaging container catching fire outside a warehouse. Mr Jensen said the company made changes after the first fire in 2019, limiting damage from subsequent fires.
Amazon.Com ink
Last year unveiled a new mechanical arm Sparrow is said to be capable of identifying and handling millions of items that the e-commerce company says represent about 65% of Amazon’s total inventory. Initially, the device will be used to group items together in each order just before they are packed.
Swisslog’s Mr Wallingford said the range of robots’ dexterity makes some warehouses easier to automate, while other warehouses are easier to automate depending on how the goods are packaged.
“If it were just absolute affairs going from point A to point B, we could very well automate that today,” Mr Wallingford said.
He said the challenge lies with piece picking for e-commerce orders when large packages containing bulk goods have to be broken down into smaller packages. Those tasks usually require people, he said.
Ruben Scriven, a senior analyst at Interactive Analysis, said investing in an autonomous system is a major financial commitment because facilities can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. He noted that there are few light-out warehouses in existence today.
“We’re still a long way from that,” Mr Scriven said. “In the next 10 years, I think the ultimate goal [with automation] really equipping human beings, making them more productive.”
write to liz young at liz.young@wsj.com
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