inbound
The warehousing and distribution industry
demands much more creativity than most people realize. To promote awareness of the latest
developments, the industry group MHI hands
out Innovation Awards each year to companies
that develop innovative manufacturing and supply
chain products and services.
For the 2016 MHI Innovation Awards competition, a panel of judge picked the winners from a
total of 98 innovations submitted by exhibitors at
MHI’s biennial Modex trade show. The winning
entries were chosen for their innovation in creating quantifiable and sustainable results in terms of
ROI, cost savings, and customer satisfaction. The
following awards were handed out at the event:
b The Best New Innovation Award went to Fetch
Robotics for its Follow Pick, an autonomous robot
that follows employees through a warehouse, collecting picked items.
b The Best Innovation of an Existing Product
honors went to Intelligrated Inc. for its Intellisort
Cross-Belt – Dynamic Discharge Compensation, a
cross-belt sorter that uses vision sensing and algorithms to avoid errors and jams.
b The Best IT Innovation Award went to RAM
Mounting Systems for its IntelliSkin & GDS
Technology, a protective device case and technology that simplify the frequent docking of mobile
devices and allow DCs to use inexpensive consumer devices in logistics applications.
MHI also named the
inaugural winner of
its “Face of the Supply
Chain” contest, part of
its campaign to inspire
next-generation workers to pursue manufacturing and supply chain
careers. The 2016 winner was Luis Castaneda,
a key account manager
at Raymond Handling
Concepts Corp., who
won the honor with his entry titled “How the
Supply Chain Saved My Life.” For more stories and
videos of unique individuals in the industry, check
out the iWorkInTheSupplyChain blog at http://
www.iworkinthesupplychain.com.
And the winners are … MHI’s Modex 2016 show in Atlanta featured over 800
exhibitors, and even with five editors on the show floor,
it was impossible for us to visit every booth and see every
new product. But we did notice some trends in the latest
offerings. Here are just three examples, all of which share a
common thread: reducing complexity.
b Pick up your phone (or watch). Most people have smart-
phones nowadays, and using them is pretty intuitive. So
why not shorten the learning curve by mimicking what’s
already familiar: the viewing and sharing of information
via phone. Several exhibitors have done just that, including
AeroVironment, whose PosiCharge ProCore battery char-
gers allow users to program the chargers and transfer data
through a smartphone app. Another was Cognex Corp.,
which introduced rugged handheld assemblies that hold
both off-the-shelf smartphones and a bar-code reader that
works in tandem with the phone. TopVox Corp. went even
smaller with its Lydia Smart Watch product, a voice-direct-
ed picking solution that displays pictures of the items to be
picked on a consumer smart watch.
b The more modular, the merrier. The use of “plug and play”
modules and standard components makes equipment easier
to assemble, update, repair, and reconfigure, an important
consideration as companies struggle to find qualified tech-
nicians. Exhibitors making the leap to modular products
included Interroll, which switched from custom conveyor
designs to a more modular, configurable platform, and
Kardex Remstar, which revamped its carousels to include
standardized end and intermediate sections. Another exam-
ple was Lenze Americas’ Smart Motor, which now features
modular plugins that let customers swap out control units,
memory chips, and the power unit without any specialized
tools or knowledge.
b Make it easy on the eyes. When people have to interact
with multiple devices or hunt through vast amounts of information, they’re more likely to make mistakes. The Raymond
Corp. tackled that problem by integrating information that
previously had to be viewed on four separate devices in a single display. The new display unit lets forklift operators view
Raymond’s i Warehouse telematics functionality and toggle
between lift truck operational information, a height-tilt
indicator, and an operator camera display. Another example (released but not exhibited during Modex) is “Subway
Platform,” a new feature of Seegrid’s fleet control system
that displays estimated-time-of-arrival (ETA) projections
at individual stations where its vision-guided vehicles retrieve
or deliver materials. Instead of having to find that information on a large display for the entire fleet, workers now
can view only the information that’s directly relevant to their
station.
Modex trends: Easy does it
