There’s no question that robots have eased many logistics headaches of the pandemic age. They’ve helped distribution centers in every sector handle a surging tide of e-commerce orders with greater speed, efficiency, and accuracy than “old-fashioned” manual operations ever could.
Yet as impressive as those achievements may be, users say they fail to tell the whole story. Sure, robotic systems can help handle inventory, but they can also boost another crucial metric—worker retention rates—by creating a better workplace for the human employees around them, several recent case studies show.
Keeping workers from jumping ship is a critical capability at a time when e-commerce operations have seen their reputations tarnished by allegations of abusive practices, including pushing workers to meet unrealistic quotas and prioritizing speed over safety. Combined with low unemployment rates, that can make it hard for businesses to hire enough people to staff their operations.
Experts say adding robots to the warehouse floor can allow companies to balance the need for speed with the need to retain the pickers, packers, and drivers who keep e-commerce operations flowing. A DC with robots offers benefits like shorter walking distances, lighter lifting loads, and digital dashboards that show progress toward goals. In that environment, workers tend to stay with an employer longer, companies say. And with industry watchers forecasting it will be decades before warehouses become truly “lights out” operations that require no human intervention, human labor will remain critical for logistics at every level.
MAKING PICKING EASIER
For an example, just look to Liberty Hardware Mfg. Corp., a High Point, North Carolina-based company that makes products like bath hardware, shower doors, and cabinet hardware. The business sells its home décor products through home centers as well as mass retail and direct-to-consumer channels.
In 2019, Liberty saw its e-commerce volumes begin to explode—a trend that extended through the pandemic year and into 2021. At the same time, customers were becoming more demanding, first pushing for 24-hour deliveries (in place of the standard 48 hours) and later, for same-day service, says Miles Poole, Liberty’s vice president for operations and planning.
To meet the rising demand, the company increased staffing at its 680,000-square-foot DC in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which operates three shifts a day, seven days per week. But that wasn’t enough. So it turned to 6 River Systems, an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) vendor that is a division of e-commerce platform Shopify Inc. In March, the retailer began using 16 of 6 River’s “Chuck” model collaborative robots, or cobots, to help it handle e-commerce direct-to-consumer orders. Liberty says the switch from manual processes to “Chuck”-assisted operations has allowed it to ship more of its orders the same day they are received while keeping up with the demands of rising order volumes.
Oh, and one more thing: Turnover at Liberty’s DC has plummeted to 3% from 25% since the robots arrived, the company says. In a video about the project, warehouse workers report that the Chuck bots save them time and energy because the robots automatically sort order lists by picking zones, prioritize rush orders, and move inventory carts with motors, instead of worker muscle. As a bonus, worker training can now be completed in 30 minutes—a major improvement over the multiple-day training sessions required in the past.
RING FOR THE BUTLER
A similar story is playing out in Goodyear, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb where contract logistics services provider GXO Logistics Inc. is preparing to open a 715,000-square-foot distribution center that will serve as the West Coast operations hub for clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co. once it becomes fully operational late this year.
According to GXO, the new facility will house e-commerce, omnichannel, and product returns operations for the retailer. It also says the highly automated facility will feature automated carts, artificial intelligence (AI)-based analytics, and goods-to-person robots from automation specialist GreyOrange. The robots, GreyOrange’s “Butler” model, will be paired with “mobile stocking units” (MSUs)—portable shelves about four feet high that are loaded with multiple SKUs (stock-keeping units)—which the bots will ferry to workers waiting at fulfillment stations.
Based on GXO’s experience at other distribution centers, this combination of technologies can boost fulfillment speeds and volumes while simultaneously taking pressure off the people working alongside the machines.
“Before these robots were available, employees had to get trained on location, kind of like how you learn your way around a grocery store, and then they had to learn how to pick, and then how to get efficient at it. So, it could take a couple of months to go from ‘good’ to ‘top efficiency,’” says Bill Fraine, GXO’s chief commercial officer. “But the cobot already knows where all the inventory is; workers just scan their ID card and it takes them for a walk. And it requires less labor because in the past, they would be manually pushing a cart, which would get heavier as they moved through their pick path. The automated carts are much easier.”
In addition to cutting training time and boosting efficiency, GXO believes the robots will help create a more satisfying work environment, thereby reducing turnover, according to Fraine.
“In today’s world, we focus on how to maintain a long-term workforce, because turnover causes inefficiency and mistakes. We need to stay ahead of that,” he says. “Our [aim] is to be the employer of choice. You have to be a great employer, not just an employer that pays well. You have to make the work enjoyable, rewarding, and fulfilling, because they have choices; workers can go anywhere tomorrow and get a different job.”
As for GXO’s choice of robots, Fraine notes that his company doesn’t see the GreyOrange robots it selected for the Goodyear site as a “one size fits all” solution. Rather, the company works with clients to determine which technologies best match their specific needs, he says. He notes that at its other facilities, GXO might install robots from any of four or five other cobot vendors in its stable or choose from even-newer products it is still testing in pilot programs.
“It’s all about finding the right automation and the right process,” Fraine says. “Coming in and automating a bad process just means you have robots running around doing inefficient work. So we work with customers before applying technology solutions, whether it’s omnichannel, returns, or e-commerce.”
ROBOTS RIDE THE ECONOMIC WAVE
Inspired by robots’ performance to date, more companies are looking to warehouse technology as a way to stay afloat in an era of soaring e-commerce demand and chronic labor shortages. That interest has spurred an uptick in new orders for robots, analysts say. For example, robot orders in the second quarter of 2021 were up 67% over the same period in 2020, indicating that demand for automation is returning to pre-Covid levels as North American companies get back to business, according to the Association for Advancing Automation (A3).
“With the big increases in automation sales and favorable economic conditions in the U.S. manufacturing sector throughout much of 2021, it’s clear users have accelerated their orders for robotics and other forms of advanced technologies,” A3 President Jeff Burnstein said in a release. “While companies have long realized that automation increases efficiencies, expands production, and empowers human employees to do more valuable tasks, the pandemic helped even more industries realize those benefits. By automating—either for the first time or expanding on how they use automation—companies will be better prepared to handle any upcoming issues that [could] impact their business.”
And as more companies integrate robots into their operations, they’re finding the bots’ value isn’t limited to their goods-handling capability. It also lies in their ability to create a better workplace—thereby helping to define a future where workers and cobots complement each other’s strengths.
