DC Velocity - March 2020

tions, including robotic truck loading and
unloading equipment.

“When you’re trying to automate
[operations in] trailers specifically, there’s
much more variety in the location of
the products you’re trying to move and
[in] their size and shape and position
within the trailer,” Criswell says, explain-
ing the difficulty of developing technol-
ogy that can grasp and move a variety of
items without damaging articles around
them or bumping into trailer walls, for
instance. “All those things are easy for a
human to do, [but it’s] more challenging
to automate that process.”
Easy for humans to do, yes, but not
so enjoyable in practice. Loading or
unloading hundreds of heavy boxes,
often in extreme temperatures, makes
the loading dock an area of high employ-
ee turnover for many operations—and
a prime driver of what Criswell and oth-
ers describe as a steadily growing interest
in robotic truck loading and unloading
solutions. DC VELOCITY asked industry
experts to weigh in on where the technol-
ogy stands today and what may be hold-
ing it back from widespread adoption.
They identified three key challenges.

CHALLENGE #1: VARIETY

The deployment of automated truck load-
ing and unloading equipment remains fairly limited,
largely because of the need to accommodate a wide variety
of items in a changing environment. As Criswell explains,
the technology thus far has been best suited to opera-
tions that handle a high volume of a limited number of
stock-keeping units (SKUs), where the items are loaded
on pallets or in similarly sized cases and boxes. The most
common solutions involve a robotic arm and convey-
or operating inside the trailer. In loading applications,
boxes and cases are fed into the trailer on the conveyor; a
robotic arm at the end of the conveyor picks up the boxes
individually and stacks them systematically from back
to front. Unloading works much the same way, with a
robotic arm picking up individual cases and/or boxes and
depositing them on an outbound conveyor. Solutions are
customized to meet specific needs and loading/unloading
environments.

The method works well for high-volume operations that can justify the steep cost of the technology—including cargo container import operations, which are pretty much the “sweet spot,” Criswell says—but not so well in applications that call for unloading a large variety of SKUs. That’s why today’s challenge in developing truck loading and unloading solutions lies in refining the technology to create an off-the-shelf version that can handle a more diverse product mix. The key to that—especially for unloading applications—is utilizing today’s 3D vision technology, which allows engineers to program equipment that can “see” into the trailer and adjust its grasping and retrieval mechanisms to fit the specific application.

CHALLENGE #2: FRAGILITY

Companies are beginning to make headway on new loading and unloading methods that can address the varied conditions on the loading dock. One of the newest trends involves technology that loads and unloads boxes quickly, though not necessarily gently. In unloading applications, for example, such solutions have a robotic arm that incorporates vacuum technology that can quickly “grab and toss” items onto an outbound conveyor.

The process increases the number and variety of items a system can handle and boosts throughput, allowing the technology to be applied to more unloading situations and making the economics more attractive to customers, Criswell explains. But it’s hardly a universal solution. While such systems work well in operations that handle relatively sturdy items—including parcel environments, where robust packaging makes it possible to grab and toss items—they’re not well suited to operations that handle fragile products, like cases of wine or boxes of glassware.

“The challenge is that it can damage products because you’re not identifying them and being careful to pick up a case at a time,” Criswell says. “You’re grabbing what you can and letting it fall, so, depending on the product, there’s a possibility of damage.”