BY VICTORIA KICKHAM, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
PICKING SYSTEMS
Material Handling
PROVIDERS OF MATERIAL HANDLING SOLUTIONS
are feeding a growing appetite for automation in the warehouse and distribution center these days, with a special
interest in robotics. Research into and development of
robotics applications for everything from picking and packing to truck loading and unloading is on the rise, and the
trend shows no sign of slowing down, says Crystal Parrott,
vice president of the Robotics Center of Excellence at the
Grand Rapids, Mich.-based systems integrator Dematic.
“It’s a fascinating time to be in robotics,” says Parrott,
whose group works with customers to develop automated
solutions that incorporate robotic bin picking and palletizing. She says advances in vision and gripping technology,
computing power, and artificial intelligence are helping to
propel robotics research and development, and that labor
challenges, e-commerce, and omnichannel business trends
are driving customers’ interest in applying high-tech solutions throughout the warehouse and distribution center.
And the timing couldn’t be better, as warehouses and
DCs morph into fast-paced fulfillment centers that offer
increasingly quick turnaround times. Finding better, more
efficient ways to move products throughout the facility is at
the top of just about everyone’s priority list, it seems.
“The industry as a whole is going to continue to evolve,”
Parrott says. “And we need solutions that can help in all
areas.”
PICKING SYSTEMS ADVANCE
Underlying the growing interest in robotics is the sheer
need to get more orders out the door faster in today’s environment. Intense competition in the e-commerce sector, a
rise in the number of stock-keeping units (SKUs) companies must keep on hand, and advancing technology in general are all causing companies to move toward automated
warehouses and DCs, and robotics is a natural extension of
that trend. A study released this spring by market researcher
Allied Market Research forecasts a nearly 12-percent compound annual growth rate in the global warehouse robotics
market between 2016 and 2023, reaching a market value of
$5.2 billion.
Most of those solutions will be used to address e-commerce business, where demand for automation is soaring.
The Allied Research report shows that e-commerce as an
industry vertical accounts for the largest share of the warehouse robotics market today, followed by the automotive
industry. The study also found that pick and place is the
most common function performed by warehouse robotics
in those environments, followed by packaging.
Robotics on the rise
The evolution of the warehouse and distribution center is causing a revolution in
automated solutions for everything from picking to loading, as robotics R&D accelerates.
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