Innovative engineered solutions

WAREHOUSE AUTOMATION is an applied science. No matter how seamlessly a system works at the factory, once it is installed in a warehouse, it needs to adjust to that reality. What’s more that reality changes, particularly for 3PLs who need to frequently adapt warehouses for new clients and or to accommodate the changing needs of a client.

Achieving this for a 3PL would traditionally mean approaching the OEM or more typically a local integrator for help adjusting the system.

The problem with this is that OEMs typically don’t want to get involved, and integrators are often insanely busy. And if you can get a hold of them, it tends to be expensive to get them on site.

DHL is working around this by building its own engineering team to carry out adjustments to processes.

DHL Supply Chain chief executive officer UK&I Saul Resnick, explains: “No one else can do this. It allows us to move faster, and work more cost effectively. We can build to suit applications.

“The Digital Manufacturing Programme sees us building conveyor sections and robotic picking applications and trialling them. Operations teams can take real world problems to this team for solutions.”

3D printing

Richard Foster runs the engineering team at the Coventry site.

“We started with 3D printing to make robot tools and we quite often use recycled materials in our processes, so that aligns really well with our customers’ ideals.

“We now use it to make conveyor sections, like a mix between Lego and Ikea. We can quickly create bespoke solutions, which is particularly important in this time of volatility.

“The key thing with R&D is to fail quickly, this means we learn quickly.”

When I visited the Coventry site a few weeks ago, the engineering department was quiet because the team was working nights to reconfigure conveying to accommodate new order profiles for a major client, without disturbing normal operations.

The engineering team tackles a wide range of issues, including software integration, as well as hardware add-ons.

Vision picking is an important area, with open source AI software playing a role.

Richard explains: “Easy access to open source software and pick and place robots means these solutions can now be achieved at low cost, and applied to lower volume problems. This is a game-changer.”

DHL is also working on automating a tote box sorting process that prepares totes that are collected by a pallet pooling company. At the moment this is carried out manually, but the team is training a system with imaging technology, robotic picking and conveying to create an automated station that will allow the 3PL to re-deploy staff to work on other, more value-add tasks.

The team also runs simulation software, allowing the development of hardware and software installations to proceed in a faster non-linear way. The software is also used for monitoring machines at the site to reduce downtime, as part of a preventative maintenance strategy.

The engineering team aims to provide the glue that helps a variety of best-in-class systems work together optimally.

Richard says: “Loading and unloading is a good example. No one supplier manages the whole loading and unloading process in an automated way. There are point solutions, for example, robotic unloading of parcels, or robotic palletising, but there isn’t a way to integrate these processes into our operations that gives us control and flexibility. So we are developing this ourselves.”

Showcase

The Cross Point Coventry facility is one of DHL’s showcase sites, explains Saul Resnick.

“It is an environmentally attractive site, with real substance behind it. The warehouse is carbon neutral in build, with a heat pump, solar panels and much else. Hopefully in due course, we’ll be able to put energy back into the grid. We need to work to get to that point, and once we have arrived, we’ll need the infrastructure to export to the grid, but that’s eminently do-able. This is the site where we have made most progress on our sustainability journey.”

The site has also been built to be first class in terms of worker wellbeing, with great facilities, such as an excellent canteen, contemplation rooms, and furniture built made from recycled materials. 

“That’s only part of the wellbeing journey,” explains Saul. “We spend a lot of money on training but it pays off well. All of our employees take the CSCS (certified supply chain specialist) course, for example, and if your aspirations are to move into supervisory and management roles, we will support and develop that.”