The power of robots in a warehouse

With the introduction of warehouse robots, the next big step in the field of AI has been taken.

For years now, industrial robotic machines have been used in factories on the shop floor. However, recent developments in AI have led to the emergence of a new type of robots. Touted as the future of warehouse automation, these rapidly growing robots have reduced the time needed to complete several tasks and have substituted human effort to a considerable extent.

Robots in a warehouse: what’s the hype?

Production and manufacturing warehouses is witnessing a major shift from traditional human labor to an army of warehouse robots. While humans wouldn’t completely go out of the picture, their role will definitely change. They will now be needed for giving commands and directions to the robots. The fundamental goal of AI is to create an intelligent system that thinks, works, and processes situations in a human-like manner but with half the time humans take to complete specific tasks. Retailers are looking forward to robots in their warehouse, as a means to reduce operational and logistical costs and to save on delivery time.

Robots in a warehouse: are there any examples?

Amazon was the first online retailer to avail of Kiva systems by paying a whopping amount of 775 million dollars. These robots were the very first warehouse robots and changed the face of global warehousing industry. They can pick up complete shelves of products and drop inventory to different packing stations across different sections of the warehouse. Sensors built in the bots prevent collisions, and algorithms determine picking/ dropping decisions based on the popularity of an item or the closest supply. Amazon now completely owns 30,000 of these robots and has renamed them as Amazon Robots. Since Amazon refused to sell these robots to other customers and retailers, it triggered an arms race and gave birth to a new generation of robot makers to fill the void created by Amazon. Other companies that have introduced robotic systems in their warehouses are Knapp Open Shuttle, Locus Robotic system, Swiss log CarryPick, GreyOrange Butler, Scallog, Fetch Robotics Freight.

Robots in a warehouse: what are the pros and cons?

The most obvious advantages of hiring warehouse robots are cost reduction and time effectiveness. Human labor force requires holidays, sick leaves, paid leaves, lunch breaks, health insurance, and several other benefits. However, all these requirements are eliminated when robots come into the picture. Pros at multi-tasking, robots can lift pallets of merchandize, move entire stacks of shelves to shipping stations, and carry out tedious jobs better than humans. While some warehouses have completely automated pick-and-package systems, other warehouses are experimenting with robots specifically designed for speed-sorting. The multi-robot fulfillment systems are some of the most expensive warehouse automatons that specialize in working alongside humans to transport palettes. Travelling as a group, these robots can navigate automatically, with guidance from a server. Some bots can even pick up racks and drop them to human-operated workstations.

The average cost of a warehouse robot is around $35,000 – thus, complete automation is not possible for smaller retailers and a little too difficult for medium enterprises. The limiting factor is the high cost of automation, in comparison with labor costs, which prevents most retailers from completely automating warehouse operations with robots. The scale and type of automation may, therefore, vary from one organization to another. However, with adequate planning and research, any warehouse can find its optimum level of automation, loaded with sophisticated features.