Conveyors, sorters, and mobile automation find their sweet spot
Experts from the conveyor, sortation, and robotics industries weigh in on the benefits of these technologies and how they can be successfully deployed in distribution operations.
David Maloney has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is currently the group editorial director for DC Velocity and Supply Chain Quarterly magazines. In this role, he is responsible for the editorial content of both brands of Agile Business Media. Dave joined DC Velocity in April of 2004. Prior to that, he was a senior editor for Modern Materials Handling magazine. Dave also has extensive experience as a broadcast journalist. Before writing for supply chain publications, he was a journalist, television producer and director in Pittsburgh. Dave combines a background of reporting on logistics with his video production experience to bring new opportunities to DC Velocity readers, including web videos highlighting top distribution and logistics facilities, webcasts and other cross-media projects. He continues to live and work in the Pittsburgh area.
Automation has been a game-changer for distribution centers. Conveyors transport products from point to point efficiently. Sortation systems redirect products to various destinations. And automated mobile load carriers, such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), transport products and reduce steps for workers who perform tasks like order picking. As labor continues to be difficult, if not impossible, to find, these systems will play an even greater role in distribution operations.
DC Velocity Group Editorial Director David Maloney recently gathered four experts who are members of MHI’s Conveyor and Sortation Solutions Group (CSS) and Mobile Automation Group (MAG) to discuss the advantages of these technologies and how they can work together to reduce labor, boost productivity, and speed products on their journey. What follows are some excerpts from their discussion.
Q: When somebody asks you what’s the best type of system for their operation, what do you tell them?
Gil Leyba – logistics consultant: That is easy: It depends. These are highly bespoke systems, with different operations, products, dimensions, weights, and characteristics. It could be a greenfield facility or a brownfield facility. Even your execution plan can totally change depending on the specifics.
So, what system is going to work best for you? It requires guys like us asking you the right questions. That is the only way to design systems that solve not just the problems that customers are facing today, but also whatever problems the future could conceivably hold.
Q: How do you know which technology provider to choose out of the many within the market?
John Hayes – Balyo:The really important thing is to look at what your vendor has done in the past. It is very easy for a vendor to say that it can do something and it typically can, given enough time and money. Do a little due diligence up front and take a look at a company that has done what you are looking to do. It eliminates an awful lot of risk on the back side. I think one of the true benefits of MHI is that you have a group of people who have done these things for ages.
Q: Customers obviously want longevity with any system they install—they don’t want it to become obsolete tomorrow or the next day. Given how fast things change, how long do they want to keep that system running before they replace it?
Chris Woodall - Hytrol:The first question you really need to ask is “Are you going to have maintenance staff and are you going to do preventative maintenance?” Many companies no longer have the staff to do preventative maintenance or even routine maintenance on their equipment. They are going to hire it all out. That can actually change which type of equipment they need because some equipment is easier to work on than others, and with some, the downtime is less. Conveyors are easily going to last 20 years as long as you take care of them. We’ve got some that have run longer than that—25, 30 years.
Q: How knowledgeable are customers when they come to you looking for automation?
Kai Beckhaus – MCJ: The bigger customers have internal innovation groups. They are typically very well informed and know a lot about the technology and different vendors. They understand the difference between a startup technology that drives the adoption of automation versus the more reliable, more established, more customized, and purpose-fit applications.
The smaller customer, by contrast, comes to us because it has a need and is attracted by marketing. Those can require a little bit more education on what the technology really can do—what the advantages are in deploying an automatic guided vehicle versus an autonomous mobile robot, or even differences between using conveyors and AGVs.
Q: What are the criteria used for choosing the best conveyor for a particular application?
Chris Woodall – Hytrol: The first thing we are always going to ask is what are the products to be conveyed and what are their specifications. Not only does it matter what the min, max, and average is, but what is your end rate? What is your final rate of sortation at the shipping sorter? That is what most people focus on, but we need to know about every single area in the operation. What throughput are you trying to get? Are the products to be conveyed polybags, envelopes, or totes? Are their bottoms flat, concave, or convex?
If you don’t have those details, you are just kind of throwing darts at a board and hoping something sticks. It always comes down to the product. That is where you start making the selections.
Q: What are some of the reasons for deploying an AGV in lieu of a forklift or even a conveyor?
Kai Beckhaus – MCJ: A main criterion is repetitive transport in a defined environment. From there, the technology selection process is very similar to what we just heard from the conveyor side. It is more about describing the challenge: I have this many pallets that need to be transferred.
We hear a lot of customers say they have three forklifts manually operating and want three AGVs to do the same thing. But that is the wrong approach because there are a lot of differences between forklifts and AGVs.
It is about looking at the application, something that is repetitive, that has a clear environment, and then your vendor will suggest how many and what type—whatever type of automation is best suited for the job.
Q: Are AGVs as fast as people operating forklifts? If not, does that mean you need more AGVs to move the same amount of volume?
John Hayes – Balyo: AGVs are not quite as fast because of the safety standards the industry adheres to. In order to be as safe as possible, we typically all cap our speeds at somewhere between two and three meters per second. So, a rule of thumb is that it takes 1.3 to 1.5 AGVs per forklift operator.
It starts to make [more economic] sense if you take one forklift and replace it with one AGV and then you work two shifts, because even though you replace one motive piece of equipment (a forklift), you replace two operators. When you go to three shifts, you replace three operators, and the return on investment makes even more sense.
So, no, it is not a one-for-one replacement, which is why the paradigm has always benefited two- or three-shift operations for AGVs. That is the sweet spot, but it is getting better. Prices are coming down. Labor rates are going up. That is why we design a system around throughput, not the number of vehicles.
Q: How are these systems supported after installation? Are warranties and maintenance packages available?
Gil Leyba – logistics consultant: Yes, that is fairly standard within our industry because these are capital investments that are expected to last years. In the case of conveyor sortation systems, it could be over 10 or even 20 years depending on how it is maintained. The better it is maintained, the longer life it is going to give you. We design a system around that ability to maintain it, whether it is us offering the maintenance packages after the sale or training the customer and giving them the tools, materials, the spares, and access to remote support they need to do it themselves. This is what customers expect and demand.
Editor’s note: MHI’s Conveyor and Sortation Systems Industry Group (CSS) and Mobile Automations Group (MAG) are independent authorities for end-users and suppliers on market trends, technology developments, and applications. For more information on the groups’ work and a list of CSS and MAG members, visit www.mhi.org.
The number of container ships waiting outside U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports has swelled from just three vessels on Sunday to 54 on Thursday as a dockworker strike has swiftly halted bustling container traffic at some of the nation’s business facilities, according to analysis by Everstream Analytics.
As of Thursday morning, the two ports with the biggest traffic jams are Savannah (15 ships) and New York (14), followed by single-digit numbers at Mobile, Charleston, Houston, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Baltimore, and Miami, Everstream said.
The impact of that clogged flow of goods will depend on how long the strike lasts, analysts with Moody’s said. The firm’s Moody’s Analytics division estimates the strike will cause a daily hit to the U.S. economy of at least $500 million in the coming days. But that impact will jump to $2 billion per day if the strike persists for several weeks.
The immediate cost of the strike can be seen in rising surcharges and rerouting delays, which can be absorbed by most enterprise-scale companies but hit small and medium-sized businesses particularly hard, a report from Container xChange says.
“The timing of this strike is especially challenging as we are in our traditional peak season. While many pulled forward shipments earlier this year to mitigate risks, stockpiled inventories will only cushion businesses for so long. If the strike continues for an extended period, we could see significant strain on container availability and shipping schedules,” Christian Roeloffs, cofounder and CEO of Container xChange, said in a release.
“For small and medium-sized container traders, this could result in skyrocketing logistics costs and delays, making it harder to secure containers. The longer the disruption lasts, the more difficult it will be for these businesses to keep pace with market demands,” Roeloffs said.
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
As the hours tick down toward a “seemingly imminent” strike by East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers, experts are warning that the impacts of that move would mushroom well-beyond the actual strike locations, causing prevalent shipping delays, container ship congestion, port congestion on West coast ports, and stranded freight.
However, a strike now seems “nearly unavoidable,” as no bargaining sessions are scheduled prior to the September 30 contract expiration between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) in their negotiations over wages and automation, according to the transportation law firm Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary.
The facilities affected would include some 45,000 port workers at 36 locations, including high-volume U.S. ports from Boston, New York / New Jersey, and Norfolk, to Savannah and Charleston, and down to New Orleans and Houston. With such widespread geography, a strike would likely lead to congestion from diverted traffic, as well as knock-on effects include the potential risk of increased freight rates and costly charges such as demurrage, detention, per diem, and dwell time fees on containers that may be slowed due to the congestion, according to an analysis by another transportation and logistics sector law firm, Benesch.
The weight of those combined blows means that many companies are already planning ways to minimize damage and recover quickly from the event. According to Scopelitis’ advice, mitigation measures could include: preparing for congestion on West coast ports, taking advantage of intermodal ground transportation where possible, looking for alternatives including air transport when necessary for urgent delivery, delaying shipping from East and Gulf coast ports until after the strike, and budgeting for increased freight and container fees.
Additional advice on softening the blow of a potential coastwide strike came from John Donigian, senior director of supply chain strategy at Moody’s. In a statement, he named six supply chain strategies for companies to consider: expedite certain shipments, reallocate existing inventory strategically, lock in alternative capacity with trucking and rail providers , communicate transparently with stakeholders to set realistic expectations for delivery timelines, shift sourcing to regional suppliers if possible, and utilize drop shipping to maintain sales.