NEED
A LIFT?
HELP
is just a step away…
STRUCTURAL
PLATFORMS
from HEP are engineered
to elevate
your profitability.
SAFETY
PRODUCTS
from HEP are designed
to eliminate damage-related
risk and cost.
800-333-0080
www.heartlandengineeredproducts.com
SAF-T-RAIL
TRAK ARMOR
BOLLARDS
POST GUARDS
SAF-T-GARD
RACK GARD
SAF-T-HEADER
SAF-T-CORNER
77058 HEP_DCVelocity 2.25x10.indd 1 11/9/15 12:09 PM
batteries commonly used in forklifts,
but not their lithium-ion counterparts.
“Lithium-ion batteries need a lit-
tle more care and maintenance than
lead-acid,” Galluzzo says. “Because you
have all that energy density [with lithi-
um-ion], you need to be sure you have
your safety precautions in line, like fire
safety. What it comes down to is that
you’re storing more energy in a smaller
package.”
To address that issue and create a
safer working environment, engineers
are already working on a next genera-
tion of batteries designed for long life
and safe operation. The new designs
use lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4)
chemistry instead of the current lithium
polymer designs, Galluzzo says.
BOOSTING STORAGE DENSITY
Once a warehouse has satisfied those
basic design requirements, it might start
to look a lot different inside, as the
introduction of robots tends to change
inventory storage patterns. A warehouse
with automated storage and retrieval
systems (AS/RS), for instance, can pack
more inventory into a given space than
one that relies on human pickers, since
computer-guided retrieval vehicles can
easily navigate aisles with just an inch or
two of clearance, Rabeneck says.
Similarly, many goods-to-person
robotic systems allow for higher-den-sity storage than a warehouse that has
to leave aisles between racks for human
pickers or forklifts. But some of that
advantage is lost if the bots also need
a dedicated staging area to place racks
of products, which can be the case in
operations that use robots to deliver
racks of products to a human picker for
selection, says Bruce Welty, chairman
and founder of warehouse automation
vendor Locus Robotics Inc. and fulfillment specialist Quiet Logistics Inc.
One way around that problem is to
adopt a different goods-to-person
strategy, using mobile robots to collect
only the items needed for orders—as
opposed to entire racks—and deliver
them to humans at packing stations,
Welty says.
Future developments in robotic technologies will doubtless continue to
influence warehouse design in terms of
the patterns of inventory storage, the
flow of goods between work stations,
and the interactions between robots and
human associates.
THE ECONOMICS OF ROBOTICS
The rise of robotics could also affect
the actual shape of the warehouse. For
instance, a company planning to deploy
rolling robots like AGVs might seek a
vast one-story building, while a company planning to use robotic cranes might
want a facility with extra vertical space.
When it goes to automate a facili-
ty, UPS Inc. considers each building’s
space, capacity, volume, and velocity
of throughput, says Frank Perez, vice
president of industrial engineering at
UPS Global Logistics & Distribution.
“Automation is a significant capital
investment,” Perez says. “If you’re con-
sidering automation with a longer ROI
[return on investment], you need to
have a good growth strategy. When
we evaluate real estate, if a DC is land-
locked, it’s a great opportunity to use
automation to drive density and effi-
ciency within the existing footprint.”
If a plan calls for increasing density by
creating more vertical storage, the com-
pany would choose a robotic solution
such as an AS/RS, a goods-to-person
system, or cranes, as opposed to AGVs
that are designed to roll across wide, flat
spaces, he says.
Those considerations may sound
pedestrian compared with the leading-edge technology that makes a robot
tick, but the need to stay profitable
carries a lot of weight when it comes
to choosing the best type of automated material handling equipment for a
facility and picking the best facility to
fit the robot.
“We have just begun to scratch the
surface as an industry,” Iam Robotics’
Galluzzo says. The same could be said
about the logistics industry’s evolution
to include advanced robotics in buildings originally designed for people and
goods.
