Inbound Logistics | July 2022

DCOPERATIONS [ INSIGHT ]

by Jim Lawton Vice President and General Manager, Robotics Automation, Zebra Technologies Inquiry4@zebra.com | 877-208-7756

AMRs Move Dock-to-Stock Metrics in the Right Direction

Manufacturers, 3PLs, distributors, and retailers are under pressure to get goods picked, packed, and shipped faster than ever. Here’s the thing, though: it will be difficult to get orders out the door on time if raw materials or pass-through inventory aren’t processed efficiently.

get more products out the door must be balanced with pulling more AMRs into inbound environments. This equilibrium is key to improving the dock-to-stock cycle times needed to keep up with high- velocity outbound operations. Warehouse and DC operators see growing value in autonomously transporting material and goods to the correct bin locations so there’s a steady ow of inbound inventory to order fulllment locations. BOOSTING PERFORMANCE Flexible automation is a fairly new concept, especially to those who have used xed automation for decades. On-demand automation solutions, such as cloud-based AMRs or robot- as-a-service (RaaS) offerings, are very different from the long-term, capex- intensive commitments required of most other automation platforms. At its simplest, when dock-to-stock cycle time is optimized with AMRs, then follow-on picking, packing, and shipping workows can be boosted to higher performance levels. When the entire operation moves like a well-oiled machine, the result is happy and satised employees, shareholders, partners and customers. n

are most certainly walking less, which gives them time to pick and pack more orders and the ability to report signicant efciency and throughput gains. Despite this improvement however, fulllment challenges remain. This drives decision-makers to audit operations more holistically, revealing

That’s why any conversation about improving outbound processes— especially when exploring automation as a solution to fulllment problems—has to look at increasing inbound logistics efciencies. Fortunately, many decision- makers are starting to understand this. THE PUSH§PULL EFFECT Warehouse and distribution center (DC) operators want to quickly get autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) online in their facilities to speed fulllment and improve inventory throughput. Insufcient workers are available to meet demand, especially during peak periods, so operators need a exible automation solution to augment the workforce. Interestingly, it isn’t always the nal pick, pack, and ship processes that are bottlenecked by climbing order volumes, shrinking lead times, and labor stagnation. This issue is becoming even more apparent as AMRs are rolled out in outbound workows. Workers

that receiving and replenishment workows—which have yet to be

similarly automated—are a root cause of inefciency and quality errors. Workers struggle to get inbound materials and products put away or cross-docked because processes remain manual and laborious, even when forklifts and other machines are used. The volume of inventory unloaded every day multiplies at record rates as customer demand balloons. So, even though workloads for inbound and outbound teams are equally affected by order surges, outbound teams perform better due to AMR support. As a result, warehouse and DC operators realize that pushing teams to

46 Inbound Logistics • July 2022