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“You’re not buying automation, you’re buying confidence in throughput.” Yaro Tenzer, co-founder, RightHand Robotics A few Modex’s ago, I wrote a column titled “It’s All About The Software,” a theme I repeated following Promat 2015. It could be that I’m just not that imaginative a guy, or, the proverbial dog stuck on a bone. But at Modex 2020, I was…
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“You’re not buying automation, you’re buying confidence in throughput.” Yaro Tenzer, co-founder, RightHand Robotics A few Modex’s ago, I wrote a column titled It’s All About The Software, a theme I repeated following Promat 2015. It could be that I’m just not that imaginative a guy, or, the proverbial dog stuck on a bone. But at Modex 2020, I was…
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In the spring of 2016, I drove to Devens, Mass., to see something truly new in the post-Kiva era: Autonomous mobile robots in a production setting at a Quiet Logistics e-fulfillment distribution center. Locus Robotics, the startup company founded by Bruce Welty and Mike Johnson, was still more concept than commercial product, but even then, Welty envisioned a multi-billion-dollar business…
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Here’s a fact for you: At present, Amazon employs more than 400,000 full and part-time associates worldwide across a network of 110 North American and another 75 around the globe. So, given that the shortage of logistics workers is a top topic at every industry event I attend, just what is Amazon doing to win the war on talent, given…
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Amazon Robotic Fulfillment Center, North Haven, Connecticut Opened: June 2019 (watch video) Size: 855,000 square feet Dock Doors: 62 SKUs: 1 million + Throughput: 1 million + orders per day during peak Shifts: 2 10-hour shifts per day, with downtime for maintenance between shifts Employees: 2,500 full-time associates, each working 4 shifts per week Primary Material Handling Equipment: Goods-to-person picking…
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Amazon Robotic Fulfillment Center, North Haven, Connecticut Opened: June 2019 Size: 855,000 square feet Dock doors: 62 SKUs: 1 million + Throughput: 1 million + orders per day during peak Shifts: 2 10-hour shifts per day, with downtime for maintenance between shifts Employees: 2,500 full time associates, each working 4 shifts per week Primary material handling equipment: Goods-to-person picking on…
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NewCold Burley, Idaho Square Footage: 180,00 square feet footprint, with AS/RS storage reaching to 140 feet high Products Handled: Frozen food SKUs: 2,000 SKUs Throughput: Facility was designed to handle 3,500 pallets per day in and out. People/Shifts: 100 employees. Facility operates 24/7. NewCold’s 190,000-square-foot distribution center in Burley, Idaho, makes the most of automation to reduce handling. But some…
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In early December, a researcher asked me what were going to be the solutions driving the supply chain 20 years from now. To be honest, I didn’t have a clue. I think back to stories I was writing less than a decade ago, and none of them predicted the rise in robotics or the emergence of things like artificial intelligence…
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In today’s e-commerce world, fulfillment has as much to do with the design of the network as it does with what happens inside the facilities located along that network. In the best of circumstances, the two work hand-in-hand. What’s more, in a fast-changing industry, what you’re doing today is not nearly as important as positioning your company for where you…
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RSL is in the process of building out a different kind of network, with a different style of fulfillment center. Receiving: RSL receives an advanced ship notification (ASN) for all incoming product. When it’s received (1) at the facility, it is counted twice and then scanned into RSL’s proprietary warehouse management system 〈WMS〉. Product is placed into the storage bins…
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Efficient use of space has always been important in distribution centers. But with the cost of industrial real estate going nowhere but up, facility managers are trying to get the most out of their existing footprints, or new facilities. That’s why very narrow aisle, or VNA, storage is topping many people’s lists. Not only can you shrink the traditional 10-foot…
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GEODIS Indianapolis, Ind. Size: 250,000 square feet Products: Apparel and fashion Stock Keeping Units: 30,000 Throughput: 20,000 units per day Shifts: 1 shift per day/7 days a week Read more about the GEODIS e-fulfillment center in the feature article from February 2019 Modern Material Handling Magazine. GEODIS is one of a handful of third-party logistics (3PLs) providers that have embraced…
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More than 6.5 million. That’s how many units GEODIS, the global third-party logistics (3PL) provider, had picked to a fleet of mobile collaborative robots (Locus Robotics, locusrobotics.com) as of mid-December 2018. 175 and counting. That’s the number of cobots GEODIS had deployed across its North American facilities as of that date. 2x. That’s the productivity improvements that GEODIS realized since…
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I don’t know about you, but I’ve never thought of 3PLs as innovators or early adopters of technology. Given the short-term nature of their contracts, the industry players focused on taking the fat out of processes and being great operators with conventional processes. Based on a few stories I’ve published in the last year or so, I think that’s changing.…
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DHL Supply Chain, a part of Deutsche Post DHL Group, announced plans to deploy emerging technologies in 350 of its 430 facilities in North American facilities and transportation control towers as part of a $300 million investment. Selected technologies will vary by customer needs, based on the outcomes of research and pilot programs completed by DHL’s internal innovation teams and…
From geometry preparation to AI-assisted analysis, integrated CFD workflows…
Software-based GripperAI manages mixed picking through basic geometry
Safety, communication and motion control components enable smooth operation
North America’s largest robotics and automation event winds down
