Free, on-show-floor presentation explains ways to combine traditional material handling automation with emerging robotic technologies for optimized order fulfillment
On Wednesday, April 10, three experts from Matthews Automation Solutions will present a free, on-show-floor educational seminar, “Using Proven Material Handling Automation and Emerging Bot Technologies to Optimize Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Order Fulfillment.” The session runs from 10:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. in Theater I and is hosted by Matthews Automation Solutions’ Gary Cash, Vice President of Solution Development and Dave Remsing, Vice President of Market Development. The pair will be joined by Dr. Paul Rivers, Managing Director of Guidance Automation, part of Matthews Applied Technologies Group.
Rivers will draw on Guidance’s 25 years of providing robotic technologies to introduce today’s state of the art autonomous solutions. This includes hardware and software advances designed to maximize intelligence, performance, safety and application flexibility.
“The front line of autonomous mobile robot (AMR) and automatic guided vehicle (AGV) development focuses on reducing errors, increasing throughput and maximizing operational efficiency, while doing so on a scalable, adaptable platform that flexes with changing demand and requirements,” shares Rivers. “AMRs should further create opportunities to integrate and collaborate with proven material handling systems to optimize all resources.”
“There’s a tremendous amount of buzz within the industry right now about robotic material handling solutions and their potential for alleviating the labor shortage,” adds Remsing. “As a result, many operations—particularly those in DTC and omni-channel order fulfillment—are trying to figure out where within their process robots might best fit.”
However, he continues, robotic automation remains largely an emerging technology, with potentially high implementation costs and complex integration requirements. “Many companies consider all three of those points to be entry barriers,” Remsing says. “Our ProMat presentation will explain several ways in which the throughput rates and labor productivity associated with material handling automation systems can be further improved with selective and incremental implementations of robotics. The point is ‘evolution,’ not ‘revolution.’”
Additionally, robotics can increase the agility and flexibility of an automated material handling operation, notes Cash: “Combining AGVs, AMRs and other robotic solutions allows a distribution center to more easily customize their system, yet accommodates future changes in fulfillment channels and requirements.”
The session will detail a range of specific application examples in which the addition of robotic solutions increased order fulfillment speed, accuracy and agility. Among them:
- Bot-assisted, semi-automated, light-directed picking systems that travel alongside pickers or tow full and empty carts;
- Put walls fed by pick-carrying bots for fast and accurate e-commerce order consolidation and packout;
- Fixed conveyor systems integrated with bots sporting motor-driven roller (MDR) conveyor on their top decks for product movement through areas without conveyance;
- Loop sorters interfacing with bots to receive full totes for takeaway or bring more merchandise for induction;
- Finishing systems supplied by, or outputting to, bots;
- Complete integration of bots and other MHE systems with a facility’s overarching Warehouse Execution Software (WES) for end-to-end optimization and balanced, continuous workflow.
Matthews Automation Solutions’ material handling automation and robotic technologies experts will be available to discuss specific order fulfillment challenges in Booth S1631 throughout MHI-sponsored ProMat in Chicago’s McCormick Place, April 8–11, 2019.
