DC s LEVEL UP
someone from outside ask the right questions,” Caddy says. If, during its consulting work, EII determines a potential client would be better served with a competitor’s system, it will recommend that. “If our plan includes our system, that’s great,” Caddy says. “If not, we’ll let the company know.” EII worked with one company that had been looking for a solution to more effectively sort packages of varying sizes and that were headed to 70 destinations. Because they had to measure and weigh each piece and also apply labels, dozens of workers were able to process only about 75 per hour. EII worked with the company to configure a machine that could weigh and measure the packages and assist in applying labels. Now, just two people process about 1,500 packages per hour. Results like this have driven EII’s growth. Since it introduced the Chameleon ® in 2018, implementations have quintupled, Caddy says. LOCUS ROBOTICS: ROBOTS THAT CAN FLEX AND SCALE Several years ago, many companies considered robotics a cool technology, but would start with a pilot. Only if that went well would they consider broader implementations, says Kaitlin Peterson, senior director of product marketing, for Locus Robotics. The conversation has since shifted. “Companies are now saying, ‘We The conversation has since Kaitlin Peterson, marketing, for since shifted. ‘We
have to automate. There’s no labor available,’” Peterson says. As companies reach this conclusion, many turn to Locus, which in September 2022 announced that its LocusBots had topped one billion units picked. In total, LocusBots have traveled more than 17 million miles in customers’ warehouses, or the equivalent of 35 round trips to the moon. Its solutions have been deployed at more than 200 sites around the globe. Locus focuses on automating material movement through a facility, from goods coming in, to picking, packing, and shipping. LocusBots add the most value when handling high-volume and rainbow orders—that is, lots of lines and different items, says Neil Bentley, director of product management. In addition, the Locus Vector is designed for high-productivity materials handling and logistics applications. Its industrial-strength chassis, omnidirectional mobility, and compact design enable it to handle products up to 600 pounds. LocusBots free employees to handle more value-add activities. Moving a pallet or a cart between pick locations doesn’t add value, and robots can do this more efficiently. “In contrast, finding the right item and right quantity finding right right quantity
Several business units make up EII. The Postal automation unit offers solutions to sort letters, flats, and parcels. EII’s Postal Steward eVS (electronic verification system) creates and submits eVS mailings to PostalOne!, the U.S. Postal Services’ web-based suite of services geared to business mailers. And the parcel automation group includes automated parcel sorting machines, sort-by- light, pick-to-light, flats and parcel manifesting, among other solutions. CONFIGURABLE SOLUTIONS The Chameleon ® is a key EII solution. It’s a highly configurable parcel processing system that adapts to each client’s environment as it processes up to 4,500 parcels per hour. With its modular design, the Chameleon ® offers customizable options for sorting, labeling, barcode reading, OCR reading, and other capabilities. “Clients can tailor it to how they want,” Caddy says. That’s in contrast to some systems that offer multiple functions, but tether all of them to a single controller. In contrast, because each EII module has its own controller, the modules can be rearranged or added to or subtracted from to meet customer needs. “Clients effectively gain a custom machine without the need to build it from scratch,” Caddy says. “We strive to offer the most impact with the least disruption.” In addition to its hardware and software solutions, EII offers consulting services, in which it takes a comprehensive look at clients’ offer the most impact most impact impact with the disruption.” addition to its hardware and solutions, EII offers consulting in which it takes a
operations. For example, if a company approaches EII with plans to automate one function, the EII team will ask how any changes will impact other processes. “Often, it helps to have company approaches EII to automate one the EII team will any changes will other processes. helps to have
Locus solutions can be scaled up to meet peak seasons, and then scaled down once the season is over.
52 Inbound Logistics • November 2022 Logistics •
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