Imagine slashing your warehouse human resource expenditures by nearly half, adding 24 hour shifts that significantly boost your production capacity and having access to troves of live information on every aspect of your operation. Warehouse robotics systems can help you transform your business, slashing expenditures, increasing production and amplifying efficiency.

Types of Warehouse Robots

While some types of warehouse robotics technologies have been available for decades, others are state-of-the-art engineering marvels that have the potential to bring about major changes the warehousing and distribution industry as we know it. The principal classifications 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 tasks, like relocating products from pallets to racking, or in production settings, for picking and packing.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Unmanned aerial vehicles, conventionally know as drones, can provide live inventory data within warehouses through the use of RFID technology.

Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) : AS/RS can retrieve products from bins and deposit products in their correct storage slots. 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 people to pick items from bins and racks, G2P technology uses robots to supply goods to picking stations, where employees are stationed to fulfill orders as items are delivered.

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) : AGVs, including self-driving forklifts, carts or pallet jacks, move inventory from one location to another within a warehouse. Cart based AGVs are sometimes known as AGCs, or Automatic Guided Carts.

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) : Like AGVs and AGCs, AMRs can transfer goods throughout a warehouse autonomously. Unlike AGVs and AGCs, which travel set routes often controlled by magnetic strips or wire tracks, AMRs make use of cameras, maps and sensors to maneuver non-static routes by evaluating their environment.

Applications For Warehouse Robots

For many years, robotic applications in warehouses were restricted to a small number of functions. As technology has evolved, robotic capabilities have flourished and they can now be used for nearly any task in a warehouse:

Loading and unloading: Although total automation of unloading and loading trailers is not yet a reality, automated systems like conveyors and AGVs can be added to enhance your loading dock efficiency.

Palletizing and de-palletizing: Robotic systems are perfect for monotonous, repetitive tasks like palletizing. Palletizizing robots generally make use of a specific End-of-Arm Tool to collect products and set them on a pallet. They're frequently coupled with conveyors that transport products to the palletizing area.

Sorting: Robotic sortation systems must be able to grab objects, ID them and put them in an appropriate bin or storage slot. As items move along a conveyor, these systems use cameras to track individual items and pick them out.

Picking: The vast majority of labor costs in a warehouse are a result of order picking activities, and robotic picking solutions have been around for quite some time to help tackle this issue. Nevertheless, modern robotic picking solutions offer increased speed, better accuracy, enhanced efficiency and far better value versus systems of even a few years ago.

Packaging: Robotic solutions are perfect for repetitious and monotonous functions like packaging. They can also be put to use for more complex tasks like weighing, dimensioning and cartonizing.

Transportation: Robotic transportation systems have wide-scale use in warehouses, from simple AGCs/AGVs to AS/RS integrated conveyors and AMRs.

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

Delivery: Large e-com businesses are experimenting with self-driving trucks, autonomous delivery drones and other emerging tech that will fundamentally change home and warehouse delivery options in the near future.

Replenishment: Leveraging RFID to monitor inventory, warehouse drones can survey barcode labels up to 50% faster than manual scanning and send stock data back to the warehouse management system in real time.

Industrial Robotics Companies Near Me

To find out more about industrial robotic solutions for your operation, talk to an automation expert at Associated today!

The Associated Milwaukee service area includes Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, Racine, Appleton, Waukesha, Oshkosh, Eau Claire, Janesville, West Allis, La Crosse, Sheboygan, Wauwatosa, Fond du Lac, New Berlin, Wausau, Brookfield, Beloit, Greenfield and all surrounding areas.

Associated | Milwaukee Material Handling Equipment Supplier

N102W19300 Willow Crk Wy Suite B
Germantown, WI 53022
(800) 354-7502