Today, the retail industry has been forced to embrace a high-performance culture. All departments across the operational value chain must accelerate and optimize their functioning to help meet customer needs faster. Delivering elevated customer experiences is the order of the day. Fulfilling orders faster is the perfect example of this culture.
With customers increasingly relying on eCommerce for their needs, retailers are pressurized into doing more than just anticipating demand.
In the past, the measure of success in eCommerce fulfillment was all about keeping warehouse shelves stocked with all the inventory likely to be sold soon. But today, the warehouse itself must transition into a dynamic entity that adds competitive value to the eCommerce value chain — enabling faster movement of goods, people, and machines with pinpoint accuracy and precision 24X7, all through the year.
This shines a bright spotlight on warehouse automation.
What Is Warehouse Automation?
In simple terms, warehouse automation is a process of automating different activities within a warehouse by leveraging a combination of robotic machinery, intelligent guidance infrastructure, and high-end software. It is done with the aim of minimizing human or manual labor within a warehouse, which ultimately leads to increased efficiency and productivity, greater speed, and zero errors in operations. Besides, an automated warehouse can work 24X7 continuously, further supporting the high-performance culture necessitated in modern retail supply chains.
The Latest Trends in Warehouse Automation
Warehouse automation is not a very recent phenomenon. It has been around for quite a while, but over time, the technology that powered automation abilities has drastically improved in its caliber. There has been a paradigm shift from simple arithmetic processing of data to automation activities.
Today, it’s powered by complex machine learning and artificial intelligence systems that help build more realistic and highly efficient automation environments within a warehouse. On this note, let us explore the latest trends in warehouse automation and what retailers and supply chain partners need to focus on while embarking on their warehouse automation journey:
Autonomous Mobile and Guided Robots
One of the biggest inefficiencies within a warehouse environment is the need for employees to perform a significant amount of walking within the facility to pick up and organize items. Products brought in from different vendors may be stacked in multiple racks and for each order, the necessary items need to be picked and brought to a sorting or packing station for the next step.
The use of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) of Autonomous Guided Robots (AGVs) is bringing a huge change in momentum in this scenario. Companies of all sizes are launching AMRs in different numbers to handle product selection and transport within the warehouse. They can work continuously in batches on guided paths without accuracy problems and accelerate order processing significantly within the warehouse.
Deployment of AI and ML
We have already given a small introduction to the use of AI and ML in warehouse automation. Like most enterprise technology applications today, warehouse automation systems are increasingly being integrated with AI abilities. This enables them to understand a deeper context of activities to be performed by machines within the warehouse.
AI enables enterprises to launch their robotic operations at scale as AI enables faster processing of route maps and provides accurate guidelines to navigate robotic machines within the facility without collisions or other mishaps. Machine learning equips warehouse robots like AMR with a self-learning ability to predict and avoid risky movement or derive faster routes for movement within the warehouse.
IoT Powered Warehouses
While robotic machinery can help in managing the transfer of goods within the warehouse, there are other aspects that need dedicated attention, such as temperature settings for perishable goods, ensuring worker safety when deployed on the floor where robots also move, and much more.
Such scenarios call for the increasing adoption of IoT-enabled ecosystems within automated warehouses. From measuring temperature and other environmental metrics to motion and integrated passenger transit solutions that transport people within the facility, the penetration of IoT technology is becoming deeper in the warehouse automation landscape.
Supply Chain as-a-Service
Another emerging trend in this space is the supply chain-as-a-service initiative. Here automated warehouses can be configured to be listed in a marketplace wherein prospects can work by leveraging this warehouse as a base for their operations. Such a scenario would require the warehouse to be fitted with a range of automation infrastructures ranging from AMRs to IoT-integrated sensors.
Visual Analytics- The Underlying Intelligence Behind Warehouse Automation
We have explored some of the most recent and celebrated trends in the warehouse automation space. From all of the trends listed above, it is clear that there needs to be an intelligent guidance system that proactively monitors the warehouse and instructs all machinery, from AMRs to sensors, to perform successive tasks. Such guidance can be delivered only if warehouses are equipped with computer vision.
By monitoring video feeds of environment-sensing cameras placed within the facility, businesses can leverage visual analytics to process and deliver guidance insights to all automation infrastructure used in the warehouse.
Knowing which visual analytics solution to use and how to use it well is thus a critical part of ensuring the long-term success of warehouse automation initiatives. This is where KamerAI can be a game changer. Get in touch with us to know more.
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