DC Velocity - May 2019

inbound

The advent of omnichan-
nel commerce is breathing
new life into a mature stor-
age technology: carousels.
“For 10 years, people have
been saying that carousels
are a dying technology,” says
Corey Calla, president of car-
ousel manufacturer White
Systems. “But now, there are
many new uses for them.”
One of the most promising
may be “buy online, pick up
in store” (BOPUS) applica-
tions, where vertical carousels
or vertical lift modules can be
used to hold picked orders
until the consumer shows up
to retrieve them, Calla said
during a press conference at
the ProMat 2019 trade show
in Chicago.

In most of these in-store implementations, the carousels are installed in the backroom and used by store employees. However, some retailers are placing them in the front of the store for self-service pickups.

White Systems is also developing a carousel module that can be installed outside the store for customer order retrieval. Calla said these units could be a good fit for urban distribution applications.

Carousels and vertical lift modules work well in store settings because they provide high-density storage for low- to medium-velocity goods. They’re also much less expensive than other automated storage and retrieval systems, and are known for their reliability, Calla added. “They’re old but proven,” he said.

Coming around
again …

If America’s structurally deficient bridges were placed end to end, they’d span nearly 1,100 miles, the distance between Chicago and Houston, a new examination of federal government data shows. According to an analysis by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), 47,052 bridges are classified as structurally deficient and in poor condition.

To prepare the report, ARTBA researchers analyzed information from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s recently released 2018 National Bridge Inventory (NBI) database. Among other findings, their study revealed that the states with the largest number of structurally deficient bridges are Iowa ( 4,675 bridges), Pennsylvania ( 3,770), Oklahoma ( 2,540), Illinois ( 2,273), and Missouri ( 2,116).

Although the total number of structurally deficient bridges in America is actually down slightly compared with 2017, the pace of improvement has slowed to the lowest point since ARTBA began compiling the report five years ago. The association estimates the cost to make the identified repairs at nearly $171 billion.

The report comes as Congress and the Trump administration continue debating the best way to fund national transportation infrastructure projects. The DOT’s Highway Trust Fund (HTF) has been the source, on average, of more than 50 percent of the highway and bridge investments made by state transportation departments. However, the HTF is facing major financial difficulties. Absent congressional action, states could see a 40-percent cut in federal investment beginning in 2021.

Pace of bridge repairs hits five-year low

Lift truck manufacturer Toyota Material Handling North America (TMHNA) has chosen four research projects for its funded research program to develop supply chain technologies, the company said in April. This year’s winning projects focus on truck/drone delivery fleets, “instant” warehouse automation, intelligent material handling systems, and Industry 4.0.

This is the third year for the TMHNA University Research Program, which promotes the development of next-generation technologies for supply chain, logistics, and material handling industry applications. The lift truck maker solicits proposals from universities across North America and then provides funding for the most promising ones. Selected proposals can receive financial support of up to $1 million, the company says.

This year’s winning proposals were selected from a field of more than a dozen submissions. They include:

b “Real-time rural medicine handling and transport using a coordinated fleet of trucks and drones,” a proposal submitted by Daniel F. Silva of Auburn University;

b “Warehouse automation in a day,” submitted by Hadas Kress-Gazit of Cornell University;

b “Intelligent material handling (iMH) systems for warehouse applications, Phase II,” submitted by Michael Kuhl of the Rochester Institute of Technology;

b “Using Industry 4.0 digital twins to model human labor in smart material handling systems,” submitted by Jesus A. Jiménez of Texas State University.