h en a Delaware Macy’s department store with years left on its lease closed because of poor performance, managers knew they had an opportunity, not a failure. Doors were permanently locked to customers
Hanna Yanovsky, general manager of Caja Robotics, has those same conversations with customers. “Every operation needs to be so ef cient to meet delivery demands, and it’s not something humans can or want to do,” she says. The pandemic and corresponding labor shortages aren’t the only factors leading to projections that worldwide commercial robot revenue in warehouses will have a compounded annual growth of more than 23% from 2021 to 2030, according to ABI Research. Today’s robotics innovators offer a range of automation solutions that are more affordable, exible, and scalable than conventional robotics systems. Robotics solutions are better suited to the growing number of smaller, more urban, micro-ful llment centers. These facilities typically aren’t large enough for traditional expensive and immobile warehouse storage, retrieval, and conveyor systems.
on Friday. OnMonday, the same associates who smiled as they handed customers their purchases the previous week were acting as shoppers themselves, picking e-commerce orders from oor displays.
It was a temporary step in the facility’s dramatic transformation into a “dark store,” a brick-and-mortar location that has been turned into a micro-ful llment center. Robotics are important to the operation. “We started by tearing up the carpet, tile, counters, and tting rooms, and turning the space into an empty shell,” says John Seidl, a partner with robotics and software rm GreyOrange. When nished, the former store leveraged the labor and ef ciency
bene ts of his company’s goods-to-person robots that bring hundreds of mobile shelving units to human pickers. HOWFASTCANWEGETTHEM? It’s a sign of the times as e-commerce continues to grow while retailers and others struggle to nd warehouse labor. Seidl cites a regional distribution center in Indiana that needs 100 people during peak periods, but has 20 open positions. “They told us, ‘We need robots. How fast can we get them?’” he says.
Here’s a short guide to the warehouse robotics industry’s acronyms and language. AGV: Automated guided vehicle that transports heavy items on a defined route by relying on location sensors, magnets, and lasers to navigate a warehouse without human assistance. AGVS: Automated guided vehicle system , a computer-controlledmaterials handling system that uses AGVs moving along a guideway. AMR: Autonomous mobile robot that brings goods to a picking station. Unlike an AGV, it navigates with computer vision, sensors, andmachine learning rather thanwarehouse floor infrastructure. AMMR: Autonomous mobilemanipulator robot that is similar to an AMR, but can alsomanipulate items on a shelf before delivering them. AS/RS: Automated storage and retrieval system that places and retrieves items frompre-defined locations. Cobot: Collaborative robot that interacts with people in a sharedworkspace, often to perform repetitive or hazardous tasks, freeing up humanworkers to focus onmore skilled tasks. G2P, GTP: Goods-to-person , an order fulfillment method that uses robots to retrieve goods and deliver them to the picking station. MSU: Mobile storage unit that can bemoved around the warehouse, often by an AS/RS. PTG: Person-to-goods fulfillment, a human, manual process that sends workers to find goods tomatch orders. GTP robots eliminate the time and productivity loss involvedwith PTG. ROC: Robotics operations center staffed by robotics technicians. SLAM: Simultaneous localization andmapping , a process used by AMRs tomap their environment, place themselves in it, andmove through it. Teleoperation: Controlling a device or machine remotely, as withmaterials handling equipment in a warehouse.
34 Inbound Logistics • February 2022
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