Re-think fulfilment in the light of booming online orders

With a ‘new normal’ introducing greater uncertainty over product profiles and patterns of demand, much higher levels of flexibility and agility will be required within the fulfilment process – and this will need to be reflected in the technology deployed.

Here are some factors that to consider:

Agility

If eCommerce businesses are to minimise risk and respond quickly to change, greater operational agility will be required to provide the responsiveness that customers expect – and the resilience logistics practitioners are looking for. Meeting such a significant rise in demand for online orders will, for many businesses, take automation. But, importantly, the automation applied will have to be highly flexible, readily scaleable and capable of delivering the speed, accuracy and performance demanded of a highly responsive fulfilment operation. 

Labour

The traditional, manual approach to order picking has in recent times been significantly challenged by three key factors. Brexit, the National Living Wage and COVID-19, social distancing requirements present a challenge. Flexible automation using goods-to-person technology offers an attractive alternative to manual picking. Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) allow valuable human resources to be reallocated to alternative, more skilled tasks.

Performance

If businesses are to meet a significant rise in demand for eCommerce orders, then picking and put-away performance will need to be radically improved. Bringing in large teams of people at Peak is simply no longer a viable option. Automated goods-to-person order picking processes can offer a significant boost to warehouse performance – reducing labour costs by 58% and improving efficiency by 84%. Perhaps the key advantage of bringing the goods to the person is that it cuts out dead time in walking the warehouse floor during picking and put-away activities.

Flexibility & scaleability

The big revolution that is taking place within the warehouse is the use of autonomous mobile robots. AI and robotics is transforming order picking. High cap-ex automation, where conveyors and shuttles are bolted to the floor, is not always seen as flexible enough for the fast-changing world of eCommerce. A fleet of AMRs can fetch mobile shelf units of products and present them to a picking station in a pre-determined stream, according to order management. At the same time as picking an order, pickers can replenish shelves, and the robot simply carries away the shelf unit to a high-density storage area, ready for the next activity. Autonomous mobile robot systems can scale up the operation by adding more robots – increasing the capacity of the system as required. Having 80 robots working independently in a warehouse is not a problem, as each performs its duties by plotting their own path, following QR codes placed on the warehouse floor. Installation is straightforward and fast, and provides a future-proofed solution suited to a fast expanding business.

Software

Trying to get large WMS vendors engaged in writing the interfaces for materials handling systems can often present a hurdle for an automation project. This is why leading automation companies offer their own warehouse control software (WCS) with the hardware – in the UK, Invar Systems writes the WCS for Hikrobot AMR platforms. When integrated with a business’ upper system, intelligent AMRs deliver valuable digitised warehouse data. This information helps companies to optimise business processes, such as labour resource management, which can significantly boost operational performance. The provision of a WCS package is particularly important for smaller automation projects, or the first steps of a modular development, where the costs of providing an interface with a WMS can be budget-breaking.

Frazer Watson, head of sales for Hikrobot at Invar Systems

For more information visit www.invarsystems.com