Warehouse Robotics | Chicago

Consider this: what would it mean to your business if you could lower your warehouse human resource expenditures by nearly half, add 24 x 7 shifts that could potentially double your productivity and have instant availability to troves of real-time data on all aspects of your operation? Warehouse robotics systems can help you reshape your business, slashing expenditures, increasing production and enhancing efficiency.

Types of Warehouse Robots

While a handful of warehouse robotics technologies have been available for a very long time, others are state-of-the-art technologies that have the potential to fundamentally change the warehousing business as we know it. The principal categories of robotics system are:

Articulated Robotic Arms: Robotic arms with multiple joints can lift and move items in a warehouse. They're commonly applied to receiving operations, such as relocating products from pallets to shelving, or in production scenarios, for picking and packing.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Unmanned aerial vehicles, more commonly know as drones, can provide instantaneous inventory insight within warehouses through the use of RFID technology.

Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) : AS/RS can retrieve goods from shelves and return items to their designated storage positions. Examples of AS/RS solutions are horizontal or vertical carousel systems, aisle cranes and pallet shuttle systems.

Goods-to-Person technology (G2P): Instead of using human labor to pick items from bins and racks, G2P technology uses robots to supply items to picking stations, where operators are stationed to fulfill orders as goods are delivered.

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) : AGVs, such as self-driving pallet jacks, forklift or carts, transfer inventory between areas within a warehouse. Cart based AGVs are sometimes called AGCs, or Automatic Guided Carts.

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) : Like AGCs and AGVs, Autonomous Mobile Robots can transfer goods throughout a facility autonomously. In contrast to AGCs and AGVs, which travel stationary routes often controlled by magnetic strips or wire tracks, AMRs rely on maps, cameras and sensors to navigate more flexible routes by interpreting their environment.

Applications For Warehouse Robots

For many years, robotic applications in distribution centers and warehouses, warehouses and distribution centers were confined to a small number of functions. As technology has advanced, robotic capabilities have exploded and they can now be applied to almost any task in a warehouse:

Loading and unloading: While complete automation of unloading and loading trailers is not yet a possibility, automated systems like conveyors and AGVs can be added to optimize your loading dock efficiency.

Palletizing and de-palletizing: Robotic systems are ideal for tedious, recurrent tasks like palletizing. Palletizizing robots typically employ a dedicated End-of-Arm Tool to pick up items and position them on a pallet. They're commonly used in combination with with conveyor systems that supply items to the palletizing area.

Sorting: Robotic sortation systems must have the ability to grab objects, identify them and place them in an appropriate bin or storage slot. As goods move along a conveyor, these systems use cameras to track individual items and select them.

Picking: A considerable portion of the workforce costs in a warehouse are a result of picking activities, and robotic picking solutions have been around for many years to help resolve this problem. However, contemporary robotic picking systems offer increased speed, better accuracy, more efficiency and superior value versus systems of even a few years ago.

Packaging: Robotic solutions are well suited for repetitious and tedious jobs like packaging. They may also be used for more complex tasks like dimensioning, weighing and cartonizing.

Transportation: Robotic transportation systems are widely used in warehouses, from simple AGVs / AGCs to AMRs and conveyor systems that are integrated with AS/RS.

Storage: AS/RS implementations incorporate many types of warehouse robots, including pallet shuttles, mini-load systems and cranes. AS/RS is also sometimes used in combination with mobile racking systems to optimize storage density.

Delivery: Leading e-commerce companies are testing self-driving trucks, autonomous delivery drones and other technologies that will revolutionize last mile delivery options in the next decade.

Replenishment: Using RFID to keep track of inventory, warehouse drones can survey barcode labels up to 50% faster than manual scanning and send inventory data back to the warehouse management system instantaneously.

Industrial Robotics Companies Near Me

If would would like to learn more about industrial robotic solutions for your warehouse, speak with an automation expert at Associated today!

The Associated Chicago service area includes Chicago, Aurora, Joliet, Naperville, Rockford, Springfield, Elgin, Peoria, Champaign, Waukegan, Cicero, Bloomington, Schaumburg, Evanston, Arlington Heights, Bolingbrook, Decatur, Skokie, Palatine, Des Plaines, Orland Park, Oak Lawn, Berwyn, Mount Prospect, Tinley Park, Wheaton, Normal, Oak Park, Hoffman Estates, Downers Grove, Glenview, Plainfield, Elmhurst, Lombard and all surrounding areas.

Associated | Chicago Material Handling Equipment Supplier

133 N Swift Rd
Addison, IL 60101
(630) 588-8800