TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Robots Break into Warehouses

Kevin Fogarty | Date: 09-28-09 | Comments

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• Bring a package? Heck, they'll bring you the whole shelf!
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  Table of Contents:

  Robots Break into Warehouses The Cost of 'Bots

• Robots Break into Warehouses

  
  Robot welders, haulers and inspectors have kept factories humming for decades, manufacturing everything from trucks to electronics more quickly and consistently than humans could manage on their own.

  Despite the increase in efficiency they bring, robots haven't broken out of the factory and into other areas of business. That's changing, slowly, as companies like iRobot and Segway adapt robotic technologies they developed for vacuums and personal mobility to military and emergency response uses.

  Kiva Systems is ahead on that curve with its Mobile Fulfillment System (MFS), which is designed to streamline what's still one of the most labor-intensive parts of any consumer business—the process of pick, pack and ship in distribution centers.

  Old-fashioned methods put warehouse workers on jacks or forklifts and sent them cruising up and down aisles to pick one product off this shelf, another off that. Modern systems cut their time-in-aisle with light systems that show them where to pick up the next item, or by building elaborate conveyor systems that move goods from shelf to truck.

  RMT Robotics adds robotic intelligence to warehouse-spanning gantries to help keep products on the move.

  Kiva's Mobile Fulfillment System takes a more individual and more directly scalable approach, according to Steve McClure, principal of Compelling Perspectives, former IDC analyst and an expert in IT automation and industrial management.  

  Kiva's robots—knee high and as big around as an overstuffed chair—scoot underneath specially designed shelves and bring products to the people, rather than forcing them to do things the other way around.

  Kiva's 'bots navigate using cameras that point down to read bar-coded stickers laid out on the floor in a grid, 1 meter apart, covering all the robots' potential pathways, which include routes up inclines and elevators.

  The 'bots communicate via WLAN to tell each other and the central control system where they are, so they can be directed to pick up products, and be kept from running into each other.

  Human operators stand at packing stations around the edge of the warehouse floor. Kiva's bearing shelves roll up, shine a laser on the product or products the human should take, and roll away again to let another take their place.

  Human pickers can process 200 to 400 packages an hour, according to Kiva literature. The 'bots can do 600 to 700. Kiva estimates it can reduce the number of person-hours required to run a large warehouse by two-thirds.

  Next: The Cost of 'Bots >>