El Estado Del Arte Materials Handling Automation Retail

THE STATE OF
Materials Handling Automation/Retail
A comprehensive look at the innovative

systems that are changing the face of retail
warehouse and DC operations.
The State of Materials Handling welcome
Automation/Retail Automation:
The heart
of retail
Resilience & innovation at Gap Inc. 4 With the continued
Just months before the start of the 2016 holiday season, one of Gap Inc.’s distribution
centers was destroyed by fire. Here’s the story of how resilience and innovation saved double-digit growth of
the day. e-commerce, mounting omni-channel
fulfillment pressures and a shrinking
WMS takes on automation orchestration 10 labor pool, warehouse and distribution
Warehouse management systems have been used for decades to manage processes
carried out by people and lift trucks, while warehouse control systems governed center managers have never been under
automation. Now, some WMS suppliers are taking on more WCS-based visibility and more pressure to transform their opera-
business logic in areas like order releasing. tions through the application of auto-
mation and software to keep pace with
Bulking up at Canadian Tire 16
One of Canada’s largest retail brands took bulk handling to new levels of automation customer demands.
and efficiency at its new Ontario DC. In fact, your automation system is
now the heart of your retail operation’s
Cubing & weighing: In the money 20 success. All the pieces need to be tied
From slotting to shipping, dimensioning equipment delivers a rapid ROI as it provides
data that expedites inventory movement at several nodes across the supply chain. together throughout your warehouse and
distribution center operations, and there’s
Next-generation data capture emerges 24 now more importance than ever placed
New types of “edge” technologies promise new options for real-time location insights. on the software to sync the flow of work
Learn how these emerging forms of data capture might supplement traditional AIDC
as well as the importance of software platforms, analytics and applications that take
to ensure the system keeps ticking.
advantage of real-time location data. In our latest Special Digital Issue,
Modern Materials Handling has curated
Robots at GEODIS 30 several feature stories that neatly encap-
The global 3PL turned to mobile collaborative robots to rev up its e-commerce sulate the automation, software and hard-
fulfillment operations. One measurable result: a 2x improvement in productivity.
ware that are revolutionizing how digital
Modern mobility: Wear it while you work 35 commerce work. The Modern staff takes
In the hunt for the next level of productivity, mobile devices can help pave the you inside some of the savviest compa-
way—if they can get out of the way. nies in the U.S. and shares the steps
these operations have taken to stay on the
Automated storage: Making the future more certain 40 cutting edge.
With change the only constant, automation hardware and software is tasked with
ensuring success no matter what may come.
Adore Me Services: Small space, big automation 45

Adore Me Services packs a lot of automation power into a relatively small space to
deliver the right customer experience.
Michael A. Levans, Group Editorial Director
Pouch and pocket sorters shake up 51 Comments? E-mail me at
e-commerce distribution mlevans@peerlessmedia.com
Follow me on Twitter: @MikeLeva
With e-fulfillment driving the need for high-rate order consolidation, pouch/pocket
sortation systems address a number of top e-commerce challenges.
Editorial Staff Peerless Media, LLC

Brian Ceraolo
Michael Levans Sara Pearson Specter Wendy DelCampo
President and CEO
Group Editorial Director Editor at Large Senior Art Director MATERIALS
LS HANDLING
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LING
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Senior Editor Group News Editor
2 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

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E-Commerce pressures continue to create unprecedented

complexities in distribution and fulfillment environments. If you’re
seeking answers to the question “What’s next?,” then we’re here to
help. Preparing for the future will mean increased integration of
warehouse automation software, labor-enablement and management
technologies, and robotics. The Connected Distribution Center
helps companies make the digital transformation to increase
reliability, improve utilization, and maximize productivity.
WATCH VIDEO
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Automation/Retail
RESILIENCE &
Just months before
the start of the 2016
holiday season,
INNOVATION
one of Gap Inc.’s
distribution centers
was destroyed by
fire. Here’s the story
at
GAP INC.
of how resilience
and innovation
saved the day.
BY BOB TREBILCOCK,
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
I
t’s November, which means the holiday season is right around the corner.
For most retailers, gearing up for peak is a matter of getting the right inven-
tory in the right locations and hiring enough people to get the projected
orders out the door.
Those tasks are daunting enough. But, how do you recover when a facil-
ity you were counting on for the upcoming season catches fire roughly nine
weeks before the first of November?
That’s a question Kevin Kuntz, senior vice president of global logistics
fulfillment for Gap Inc., and his team confronted on the morning of Aug.
30, 2016. The night before, a fire tore through a 1-million-plus-square-foot
distribution center in Fishkill, N.Y. The fire destroyed about $100 million
worth of equipment and inventory, and while all employees continued to
be paid, hundreds were impacted. What’s more, it took an important order
fulfillment asset offline right before peak—a little like losing the starting
quarterback on the eve of the Super Bowl. Punting isn’t an option.
“At Fishkill, we were already on our cross-channel logistics journey of
building out the shift from retail replenishment to online fulfillment when
that fire happened,” says Kuntz. “During the 2015 holiday season, we had
done a pop-up location on our Gallatin, Tenn., campus that operated for
about 6 to 8 weeks, so we had to move quickly to get that manual pop-up
facility back up for the 2016 season and plan for a larger facility for 2017.”
Working with a systems integrator (Vargo), Gap Inc. pulled together a
multi-brand, online fulfillment center in Gallatin that represents 500,000
Kevin Kuntz (left) is senior vice president of global
logistics for Gap Inc., and Shawn Curran (right) is square feet out of a total of 2.5 million square feet on the campus. It fulfills
executive vice president of Global Supply Chain online orders for the Athleta and Banana Republic brands year-round and
and Product Operations for Gap Inc.
Old Navy during peak. The campus also includes a 1.2-million-square-foot
building servicing Old Navy stores and an 800,000-square-foot building ser-
vicing Gap stores and outlets.
While it popped up as a life preserver for the 2016 peak season, the
Gallatin campus today is also a showcase for innovation at Gap Inc. and
features multiple piece-picking robotic put walls; nine aisles of mini-load
and shuttle technology for automatic case storage and handling; a ware-

Phillip Parker/STUDIO at Getty Images
Among its innovations, Gap Inc. is
using a piece picking robotic put wall
in its packaging process.
house execution system (WES) for

balancing the workload through the
facility; a split-tray sortation system;
and automatic bagging and trailer-
loading technologies. Inbound cartons are conveyorized in the trailer or container and automatically delivered
It’s a case study in risk manage- to storage. A mini-load AS/RS provides high-density carton storage.
ment and resilience and an innovative
approach to automation. “In the past,
distribution was viewed as a cost center Trial by fire dedicated to e-fulfillment in Columbus,
and now, because of innovation, it’s At present, Gap Inc. operates a network Ohio; three DCs in Gallatin, Tenn.; an
a competitive advantage for us,” says of 10 distribution centers in North e-fulfillment facility in Phoenix; two dis-
Kuntz. “If we can do our job quicker and America to handle store replenishment tribution centers in Fresno to serve the
faster, we get a better seat at the table. and e-commerce, a total of 8.8 million West Coast; and one facility in Canada.
It’s been fun and energizing for the square feet. There are two distribution At one time, 14 buildings were in the
logistics team to be part of this.” centers in Fishkill, N.Y.; a large facility network, but the company’s capacity and
mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 5

Automation/Retail
Orders are filled in a four-level pick

mezzanine connected by conveyor.
But innovation isn’t just an e-ful-

fillment phenomenon. In its retail
fulfillment operations, Gap Inc. hasn’t
performed a manual pick from a pick
module in the past three years, accord-
ing to Kuntz. Cartons are put away
into storage in a mini-load system and
mixed-carton orders are assembled
at a goods-to-person station serviced
by shuttle systems. When an alloca-
tion drops, a carton is pulled from the
mini-load or from the shuttle. If the
carton’s contents are consumed, it
workforce allowed them to transform merce. “When our online business was goes back into storage. Otherwise, it
their campuses from single-channel merged into our overall logistics organiza- goes to shipping. “In retail fulfillment,
operations to cross-channel fulfillment tion, it became clear that technology and we now just touch a carton when
operations that leverage cutting-edge innovation would be necessary to keep we unload it from the truck and, for
technology and automation—an initia- up with the growth of e-commerce.” The full cartons, when it gets to a sorter,”
tive they call Cross-Channel Logistics subtext: E-commerce is labor intensive, Kuntz says. “We have reclaimed so
Optimization (CCLO). As a result, especially at peak, and retailers and much space in our distribution cen-
Gap Inc. was able to reduce its foot- e-tailers alike are congregating in the ters because we don’t have pick mod-
print down to 10 distribution centers same logistics hubs, going after the same ules for retail fulfillment any more.
in North America while also increasing finite labor resource. Only in our e-commerce operations.”
capacity. That’s the power of innovation. “We were hiring thousands of people In the summer of 2016, Gap Inc.
As with many retailers competing during peak seasons across our network,” was in the midst of remaking one of the
in the online space, the catalyst for Kuntz says. “When you tax markets like Fishkill facilities to expand its e-fulfill-
innovation at Gap Inc. over the past five that, you quickly find out how hard it is ment capacity by 300,000 units a day by
years has been the growth of e-com- to find that much labor.” the start of peak. Then the fire struck
Robotic picking brings together AI, Big Data and machine learning
I t’s easy to think of robotics, Big Data, artificial intelligence
(AI) and machine learning as four distinct things. But
according to a recent presentation by George Babu, the co-
fies the area where the robot thinks it can pick up the item. If
that pick is successful, that information becomes part of the
robot’s historical database that can inform picking another
founder of Kindred, the robotic startup whose put wall tech- item that looks similar—think Big Data.
nology is now in use at two Gap Inc. distribution centers, the If unsuccessful, a robot pilot—a human at a remote lo-
four come together when a robot is tasked to pick an item. cation who is monitoring Kindred’s robots in the field much
When the robot is presented with an item it has picked be- like a remote drone pilot—can take over the controls and
fore, it has a history (think Big Data) to draw from—accessing direct the robot to pick the item. Based on that experience,
its database, it knows how it picked the item before. But what the robot learns how to pick that item the next time it sees
happens when it is presented with an unfamiliar item? it. And that’s machine learning. All of these technologies
First, using vision and sensors, it scans the item; artificial are building on one another to make the robotic technol-
intelligence—think of it as applying past experience—identi- ogy a success.

Automation/Retail
ning to transform the 500,000-square-foot

Gallatin facility into a highly automated,
cross-channel fulfillment operation, serv-
ing online and retail for the Athleta brand.
“Post peak, the split-tray sorter was
waiting for us,” Kuntz says. “We imme-
diately started dismantling racks to
make room for the sorter; we moved the
existing pick module to a different part
of the warehouse and moved in a four-
level pick module.”
The project was going to be com-
pleted in phases. In 2017, phase one
focused on conveyor and sortation.
Cartons were automatically received
Picked items are routed to packing by a split-tray sorter. onto an inbound conveyor system
and sorted to value-added services
in late August. As it turns out, that’s Shortly after that night, Kuntz received as needed or to conventional carton
the kind of thing considered in Gap a call from Vargo, the WES software storage. Items picked in the four-level
Inc.’s risk management playbook. “We provider and system integrator based in pick module were inducted onto the
drill for these kinds of events,” Kuntz Columbus, Ohio. Vargo was already work- split-tray sorter and conveyed to pack-
says. “When you’re sitting through some ing with Gap Inc. to use its WES at Fish- ing at put wall stations. It was all tied
hardcore simulations, it seems a little kill. Given industry lead times, it would together with the WES system in a
far-fetched, but not now.” take 18 months to get new equipment, waveless picking process that inter-
The night of the fire, they were meaning a good two years before Fishkill leaved e-commerce and store replen-
on the job. While leaders at Fishkill could go live. But, perhaps, another solu- ishment for the Athleta brand. Rather
confirmed all employees were safely tion was out there. “We had a customer in than create pick waves, the software
accounted for, Kuntz and his team Pennsylvania that had shut down a build- pulls work through the facility to main-
brought out the playbook and reviewed ing that was using our WES software and tain a constant flow of activity on the
their options. Planning began by revis- had conveyor and a bomb bay (split-tray) machines, keeping them busy for the
iting the pop-up site in Gallatin and and shipping sorter,” recalls Art Eldred, full 60 minutes in an hour.
creating an additional pop-up site on Vargo’s client executive for systems engi- The work was completed in August
the Fishkill campus. Team members got neering. In short order, Gap Inc. had of 2017. The results met expecta-
on the phone to redirect freight to other made a deal to purchase and ship the tions. “That holiday, we averaged about
locations. The next morning, all Fishkill equipment to Gallatin, where it would be 110,000 packages a day following a go-
employees were informed they would ready to go after the season was over. live that was just 2.5 months earlier.”
not miss a paycheck, even on the days Somehow, it worked. “What I remem- Kuntz adds that despite the speed
when they didn’t come into work. ber most is how many hours we asked our at which the equipment and software
Those were solutions to the short- employees to work that season,” Kuntz was implemented, very few issues
term problem of how to survive says. “They were the unsung heroes, arose from a system standpoint. “The
the upcoming holiday season. The working a lot of 70-hour weeks. But, all of WES software is impressive when
longer-term solution they needed to the retail stores got serviced, and we kept it comes to self-healing,” he says.
figure out was how to replace the up with online demand.” “You go to a location and if it’s short-
300,000-units-a-day capacity Fishkill picked, the software orders replenish-
was supposed to provide before the Phasing in automation ment for the pick location and sends
facility burned nearly to the ground. At the start of 2017, with the 2016 peak in a carton with the shorted material to
How do you survive a trial by fire? the rear-view mirror, Gap Inc. began plan- the pack location. Everything is hot

picked from reserve storage.” sphere has 20 cubbies, compared to 32 gave feedback on what was and wasn’t
In 2018, phase two saw the imple- in a normal put wall. When items drop working,” says Kuntz. “We worked with
mentation of nine aisles of automated into one of the robotic spheres, the Kindred to make modifications and
storage, both crane-based mini-load for robot uses a vision system to determine saw lot of potential to expand the solu-
high-density storage and shuttle storage. how to grasp the item. tion.” Currently six robotic put walls
That equipment will now be in place for When the robot presents the picked are at work in Gallatin, and even more
this year’s holiday season. item to a fixed scanner, the WES identi- have been installed in Fresno.
fies the cubby location for the put. In A little more than two years since the
Robotic put wall anticipation of the 2017 holiday sea- fire, Gap Inc. has not only risen from
Gap Inc. describes itself as an organiza- son, two of the robotic put walls were the ashes, it has moved its automation
tion unafraid to innovate, even if only installed in the Gallatin facility. Accord- capabilities further, with more on the
some of the projects result in a technology ing to Kuntz, the put walls were up and horizon. “We have a great group of people
that goes live (see box below). “A lot of in production within two days of their that loves making things better, faster and
folks hate change,” says Kuntz. “If you’re arrival. Autonomous picking started cheaper,” Kuntz says. “Our special sauce
going to do innovation, you have to have at 20% and has increased to over four is that success has built our confidence,
people who enjoy change and making times since the partnership first began. and the team enjoys looking at
things work. Rather than being skeptical, “We worked through that 2017 opportunities to lower costs and increase
our attitude is: How do I make it work?” holiday season with the two units and speed.” •
Ideas typically come from ProMat and
Modex, the two major North American
materials handling trade shows. At Pro-
Mat 2017, Gap Inc.’s supply chain team
came across a piece-picking robot from
Kindred AI, a California-based company
that was initially designed to move items
from one tote to another.
The AI and robotics company also
built SORT, a 360-degree sphere with a
robotic arm and cubbies like a put wall.
Following ProMat, Kindred brought
a prototype to Gap Inc.’s Fresno dis-
tribution center. “We looked at it and
thought, with some modifications, we
could make it work as an alternative to
a human packing station,” Kuntz says.
“We decided to do a proof of concept.”
To make it work, Vargo adapted its
software to provide a put location for
the robotic product. The chutes feed-
ing the two put walls are destination
locations for the split-tray sorter. Each
The Gallatin facility includes a number of

spherical robotic put walls (top). Items are
conveyed to packing. Packed orders are
sorted to shipping (bottom).

WMS
Automation/Retail
takes on
automation
orchestration
Warehouse management systems have been used
for decades to manage processes carried out by
people and lift trucks, while warehouse control
systems governed automation. Now, some WMS
suppliers are taking on more WCS-based visibility
and business logic in areas like order releasing.
Find out why this matters to e-commerce intensive
operations and why orchestrating automated zones
with people-focused processes is next for WMS.
BY ROBERTO MICHEL, EDITOR AT LARGE
W
arehouses and distribution centers right goods out to customers on time.
(DCs) are struggling to keep up with These industry shifts are making optimal use of auto-
the pace of e-commerce fulfillment mation more central to successful operations, and ware-
with its short order cycles times and house management system (WMS) providers are taking
labor-intensive piece picking. This pressure combined notice. Recently, more WMS vendors are incorporating
with the challenge of finding enough warehouse labor is warehouse control system (WCS) capabilities into their
leading many DCs to turn to automation like put walls, solutions. That’s a change for WMS suppliers whose
pick-to-light systems, shuttles and sortation to get the solutions have traditionally focused more on inventory

control, as well as directing people in picking and other Now, there is a realization that how we can make
work activities, says Dwight Klappich, a research vice work more effective in an automated world is going to
president with analyst firm Gartner. require some rethinking.”
“If you look at most WMS solutions, they are This rethinking by WMS vendors is resulting in
principally designed for people-driven processes,” more attention to WCS functionality. In some cases,
Klappich says. “And, over time, capabilities have been vendors have added order-releasing logic that builds
added [in WMS] to make humans more effective— on WCS-based automation visibility, while in other
with functions like wave planning or task interleaving. cases, WMS vendors offer WCS.

Automation/Retail
Robotics and automation adoption zones. “A WMS’s strengths around planning, execution and
warehouse processes is made more intelligent when you have
better data from that automation layer,” says Elliott.
In use today 34%
In HighJump’s case, the WCS capability is derived from an
1-2 years 19% established WCS from sister company Inconso, also part of
3-5 years 20% Körber Group, that HighJump has linked to WMS functions.
Earlier this year, HighJump announced it would be leveraging
6+ years 10%
that WCS as the basis for “automation aware” features within
Unlikely to adopt 17% its WMS solution. According to Elliott, those features are well
under development, with beta customers being identified and
Source: 2018 MHI Annual Industry Report
the first implementation to be underway by the fourth quarter
of 2018.
According to the MHI 2018 Industry Report survey, adoption of
robotics and automation is currently at 34%, but adoption is
The features revolve around automation-aware order releas-
predicted to reach 53% in two years, and 73% within five years. ing as well as routing and work segmentation decisions within
the WMS, says Elliott. Beyond just surfacing WCS-based vis-
WCS solutions emerged in part so transactional systems ibility within WMS, it really uses that visibility to change the
like WMS or warehouse management modules of enterprise way the WMS does order releasing, arranges routing and work
resource planning (ERP) systems could communicate to one segmentation. “It allows us to extend our value proposition by
middleware layer rather than having to interface directly to taking better advantage of that real-time view into automa-
control systems for individual pieces of automation. Most tion capacity and route decision making, in effect pulling that
WMS vendors, however, did not write their own WCS, but visibility up into WMS to improve allocation and waving,” he
rather integrated to WCS from warehouse automation equip- says.
ment providers or integrators who offer WCS. Another best-of-breed WMS provider pursuing WCS/WES
functionality is Manhattan Associates. In May, the company
WCS/WES on tap announced WES capabilities would be in its latest WMS
But with more warehouses adding automation, and e-commerce release, building on “Order Streaming” functionality it has
pressures on the rise, this is elevating the need for WMS solu- offered for a couple of years. Manhattan’s Order Streaming
tions that can make decisions based on real-time automation is a way of handling order releasing for better single order
status. Of course, WCS providers aren’t standing still either. throughput and to accommodate insertion of priority items
Several have gravitated upward toward WMS-level functions into a concurrent picking session.
like order releasing, evolving some WCS solutions into a cat- According to Adam Kline, senior director of product man-
egory known as warehouse execution system (WES) solutions. agement for Manhattan, the WES capabilities are focused on
Right in the middle of this WMS/WCS confluence is the the orchestration of automation with WMS processes. A site
need to govern order releasing and drive a productive pace of using Manhattan’s latest WMS could retain existing WCS or
work across all zones of automation, so the systems in a ware- other control systems to govern physical movement of auto-
house work cohesively. “The need is to look at everything as an mated equipment, but the WES capability would tap automa-
entire system so that you don’t release too many picks into the tion visibility to help improve WMS decisions.
system because it might flood the put wall toward the end of the “We’ve taken WMS and built warehouse execution capa-
operation,” says Klappich. “There is more attention on how to bilities directly inside,” Kline says. “That provides the system
optimally release work into the overall system so it just continu- with a much more real-time view of capacity to allow it to
ously flows through, and that’s where WMS solutions are getting make decisions that drive high utilization. So, for example, the
away from more purely people-driven processes.” system knows not to assign more work to [equipment] that is
Sean Elliott, chief technology officer of HighJump Soft- close to being overwhelmed with work, while making sure it
ware, a WMS vendor that is adding WCS-based capabilities, isn’t overlooking assignments to resources that may be close to
agrees that WMS-level decisions increasingly need to be being under-utilized.”
cognizant of what is currently happening within all automated Kline says that while the initial approach with order streaming

was to use an approximation of a site’s automation capacity to Multiple providers
figure out how to release work, now with WES visibility built into Many vendors are involved in the evolution in the blending
the WMS, the order-streaming algorithm has real-time knowl- of WMS and WCS software. While some WMS providers
edge of available capacity to make decisions to keep work steady are only recently adding WCS/WES functions, other play-
and productive. ers have been at this combination for years. These include
“The system knows at any given time if a sorter chute has automation integrators that have evolved their WCS solu-
just cleared, for instance, creating more capacity to allow more tions into the WES arena, as well as major warehouse
assignments to that unit sorter,” Kline says. “Or, if a cubby has automation equipment vendors that have made software
just been cleared on a put wall, there is more capacity the algo- acquisitions.
rithm can now assign work to.” Some WMS providers have roots in Europe and offer both
Under the latest WMS release, adds Kline, order streaming WMS and WCS. Vendors such as Consafe Logistics, Ehrhardt
techniques become the default “engine” for order releasing. + Partner Group (EPG), and SSI Schaefer are among the
Early in the morning, the engine can group work for efficiency, vendors blending WMS with WCS. Indeed, the complete list
but as the shift continues and carrier pick-up times approach, of vendors who can lay claim to being in the WES market is
the engine automatically adjusts so hot orders get shipped on quite long, with some coming at it from WMS roots, while
time. “This is no longer just a rules-based push of work onto others come at WES more from roots as automated equip-
the floor; it’s an optimization engine,” Kline says. ment providers or integrators.
Real-time location solutions could help WMS

T he trusty bar code has done much to improve inven-
tory control in warehouses and support warehouse
management system (WMS) workflows, but now real-time
management of materials in factories, while the yard solu-
tion is a yard management system with real-time location
visibility.
location solutions can bring real-time visibility to assets The asset solution is probably the one most likely to be
or even people in a warehouse, says Mark Wheeler, Zebra used within a warehouse, where it could be used to track
Technologies’ director of supply chain solutions. assets like lift trucks, other vehicles or equipment, return-
Zebra, known for rugged mobile computer and bar able transport items (i.e. containers like pallets, kegs or
code printers, also offers locations solutions that work bins that need to be returned to a supplier or service
with multiple edge technologies including radio frequency provider), or even people. If people were to be tracked,
identification (RFID) and ultra-wide band (UWB) devices. the solution could do that with technology added to an
In June, Zebra announced a portfolio of its MotionWorks employee badge, says Wheeler.
location solutions that could in some instances be used to The yard solution might not physically track assets
feed better information to WMS solutions, says Wheeler. within a warehouse, explains Wheeler, but its real-time
“Most warehouse management solutions, if well imple- control over yard activities would have a beneficial spill-
mented, are pretty highly structured and can do a good over on WMS processes. “The information from a yard
job of optimizing workflow, but they do have limitations,” solution can integrate with WMS, and that visibility can
Wheeler says. “Their visibility to operations is usually certainly help in areas like workload planning for the
transactional. Generally, a WMS knows where a material docks,” Wheeler says.
movement starts and where it stops, but it doesn’t have Powered by Savanna, Zebra’s data intelligence plat-
constant visibility into the paths being taken, dwell times form, MotionWorks can integrate edge data from multiple
or congestion issues that you can get with real-time loca- sources, including UWB, passive RFID tags, Bluetooth
tion solutions.” Low Energy (BLE) beacons and cameras. “We’re agnostic
Under MotionWorks, Zebra now offers three solutions: on the source of the edge information,” says Wheeler.
the MotionWorks Asset solution, the MotionWorks Mate- “It’s important to maintain that independence because
rial solution, and the MotionWorks Yard solution. The different physical environments and operational chal-
materials solution, says Wheeler, is focused on real-time lenges may point you to one technology over another.”

Automation/Retail
According to Corey Jines, vice president of North America WMS know that,” Garber says.
Services for EPG, a software provider that offers integrated Another front EVS sees for integration is data from handheld
WMS/WCS, when a vendor’s WMS truly blends with WCS, devices used in the warehouse. EVS’s WMS solution runs on
the combined solution drives decisions at the WMS level. IOS devices such as iPads or iPhones, and the positioning sen-
“When you have a solution in which WCS and WMS really sors in these devices can be tapped for geofencing and location-
work together, that’s what becomes WES,” Jines says. “And related information, explains Garber. EVS is working with this
now you have these WES capabilities in effect thinking for positioning data to enhance system security, so the system can’t
the system, so the warehouse can automatically adapt for be used outside the building, and in applying predictive analyt-
issues like seasonality.” ics to the data stream. The analytics show ways to enhance
Jines agrees that the smarter order releasing that accounts WMS processes like dynamic slotting or picking management
for the real-time utilization and material flow of automated and optimal routes.
systems is a hallmark of a WMS with embedded WCS. How- “An IOS device like an iPhone can act like a big sensor,”
ever, he adds, the real endgame is e-commerce or rush order says Garber. “You are able to measure where people are, and
fulfillment, so WMS/WES solutions should have workflows where they’ve moved. It’s not transactional data, but rather,
and processes that make smart adjustments when it comes to interesting and potentially useful data that surrounds the
outbound logistics processes. transactions.”
“From the point of view of the operations team, when Garber says EVS is in research and development on how
you say ‘order releasing,’ what they’re most interested in is to glean specific insights from sensor data, but adds he’s
how that releasing is going to help them when it comes to confident this type of analytics will be important to future
labor resource management and carrier planning,” says Jines. improvements in WMS. “At its most basic level, sensor
“When you have WCS combined with WMS, now you have data and analytics are like a learning engine that can dis-
better forecasting for your labor resources, and you are more cover insights that you just couldn’t hard code into a sys-
precise in how you can manage your dock availability and tem,” he says.
turn times at the docks because you are able to narrow your Kline says Manhattan is also starting to apply machine-learn-
windows in the warehouse.” ing algorithms to how WMS handles order releasing. Machine
learning, he says, can quickly predict how long “draft tasks”
Sensors and AI might take and use those insights to drive better order releasing.
At EVS, a Cloud-based WMS vendor, a core strategy for The machine learning, says Kline, will be fed by WES-level vis-
the company is to provide simplified integration to vari- ibility into the automation, and also might assess historical data
ous applications including ERP systems, transportation on how long similar tasks have taken.
management system (TMS) solutions, labor management Klappich points out that, generally, this blending of WCS
systems (LMS), or specific equipment or controllers on and WMS is mainly geared for DCs with high-velocity fulfill-
industrial networks. To this end, EVS has partnered with ment demands and multiple automated systems. The growth
integration middleware company MuleSoft to streamline of relatively low-cost robotics might broaden this need for an
integration to ERP and TMS. automation savvy WMS, but for now, he adds, “the key to this
In keeping with this integration-friendly approach, says [trend] is that it is really for highly automated facilities.”
Evan Garber, CEO of EVS, it isn’t developing embedded For WMS vendors making the foray into WES, however,
WCS features, but does place attention to simplified integra- the new capabilities are changing up the WMS value proposi-
tion to WCS or to specific automated equipment. “There tion. As HighJump’s Elliott says, “With WMS, we can make
are many cases where you might want to integrate WMS really good decisions about human activity in the warehouse,
to industrial machinery. With print and apply stations, for and with WCS we can make really good machine-level deci-
instance, every time a label gets applied, you know an item sions. And now with the interplay between the two, we can
or case is ready for the next step, so integration between make the best facility decisions that fully leverage capacity to
a print and apply station and WMS automatically lets the better service the customer.” •

Problem solved.
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Automation/Retail
Bulking up at
Canadian Tire
I
John Spaulding/Getty Images for Peerless Media
n a nearly 1.5-million-square-foot space One of Canada’s largest retail brands took

in Caledon, Ontario—a space equiva- bulk handling to new levels of automation and
lent to a good-sized factory—a fleet of efficiency at its new Ontario DC.
43 automatic guided vehicles (AGVs)
shuttles pallets between work areas or BY BOB TREBILCOCK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
puts them away into very narrow aisle
storage. In one part of the building, a (Fortna, fortna.com) to handle the retail adds that the AGV fleet represents the
250,000-square-foot area is designated distribution of larger conveyable and most vehicles, especially the very nar-
to an overhead tire-handling gantry and bulk goods, such as lawnmowers and row aisle (VNA) AGVs, that the sup-
storage area where two robots move canoes, as well as non-conveyable items plier had implemented in one facility,
some 20,000 tires a day to fill orders or like those tires, to some 500 Canadian resulting in additional software code.
stock reserve storage. Tuggers deliver Tire stores across Canada. “When we were looking at technology
pallets that aren’t handled by AGVs to “This was the first time that we options, we realized that some poten-
the shipping area. know of that the tire gantry robotic tial applications of technology typically
It’s the kind of equipment and activ- system has been used in a distribu- applied more to manufacturing envi-
ity you would expect in a highly auto- tion center, which meant a great deal ronments,” adds Geoff Woodcroft, the
mated manufacturing facility, especially of work from a software development associate vice president responsible for
the AGVs and gantry robot. But, Cana- perspective,” says Karen Adie-Hen- the distribution project, “but we thought
dian Tire’s Bolton Distribution Centre derson, associate vice president of the there were real opportunities to apply
was designed with a system integrator Bolton DC, Canadian Tire Retail. She these technologies in retail distribution,

especially in regard to larger conveyable
and tire-handling applications.”
Opened in July 2017, the Gold
LEED-certified facility consists of
three 500,000-square-foot distribution
centers under one roof. Building A was
designed to automatically handle about
5,000 items that can be conveyed to
a unit sorter in their original packag-
ing or in a tote. Building B handles
the fastest-moving items, as well as
some oversized non-conveyables, like
swimming pools, trampolines and
televisions. Building C includes the
tire-handling area as well as long, large Geoff Woodcroft, associate vice president, and Karen Adie-Henderson, associate vice
or heavy items that require special han- president, Bolton DC.
dling, such as hockey sticks and snow
blowers. Hazardous and flammable The DC handles 350 trailers a day Four of those distribution centers sup-
items are also stored in a special area in (175 in and 175 out) and 65 million port the Canadian Tire brand. Facilities
Building C. Each area was designed to cubic feet of shipments per year in a in Western Canada and Montreal are
maximize the efficient handling of the seven-day, two shift operation. After 18 dedicated to regional distribution of the
products managed in that location. months of operation, Canadian Tire is fastest-moving SKUs. The Bolton facil-
Along with the AGVs, gantry robot realizing improved product flow, higher ity ships bulk SKUs across Canada. The
and tuggers, the facility features: fill rates and reduced handling costs. fourth facility handles regional products.
• 244 dock doors divided between “As we continue to improve our pro- Planning for the new facility got
inbound and outbound shipments. cesses, we see the KPIs get stronger and underway in 2012. At the time, bulk
• Five four-level pick modules for greener,” says Adie-Henderson. products were being distributed from a
conveyable products using pallet, case nearly 40-year-old facility in Brampton,
and shelving pick systems. New location Ontario. At one time, it was state-of-
• Voice-directed picking and pro- With revenue of nearly $13.5 billion the-art, with a tow line to move pallets.
cessing. CAD in 2017, more than 10 ban- “It had served us well for many years,
• 3 miles of hanging platform con- ners and 1,700 retail and gas outlets, but it was at the end of its useful life,”
veyor, including 40-inch wide conveyor Canadian Tire Corp. Limited is one of says Woodcroft.
to transport larger traditionally non- Canada’s largest and best-known retail- Growth (along with changing order
conveyable products. ers. Canadian Tire Retail supports 500 profiles, such as more mixed cartons and
• A cross-belt order consolidation entrepreneurial dealers across Canada mixed pallets and smaller and more fre-
conveyor feeding 197 chutes—half the and generated more than $7 billion quent deliveries) called for not just more
chutes are designed to handle products in revenue in 2017 across its five core capacity and better flow, but flexible
weighing 15 pounds or less while the areas: Automotive, Living, Fixing, Play- solutions that can accommodate what-
other half are outfitted with motor- ing and Seasonal. The company likes to ever comes down the pike in the future.
driven roller conveyor to control the say it provides the products for the jobs Fixed, hardwired and expensive to main-
descent of heavier items. This is the first and joys of life in Canada. tain, the tow line was a major impedi-
chute design of its kind. The distribution network to support ment to upgrading the existing facility.
• RFID scanners in packing to scan all of the brands includes seven facili- In 2012, after a site for the new facil-
items to a pallet or a cart. ties in Western Canada, six in Central ity was selected, planning got underway.
• Hydrogen fuel cell lift trucks will Canada and three in the Eastern part of
be made operational at a later date. the country representing regional distri- Designing for flexibility
• Fast and opportunity charging for bat- bution centers, transload facilities and The design of the new facility was driven
tery-operated vehicles, including the AGVs. parts-distribution facilities. by several factors. Top of mind was sus-

Automation/Retail
productivity in the business while also

meeting the needs of the team.”
They chose a tire gantry system
commonly used in tire manufactur-
ing after investigating alternatives
such as a simple robotic arm and tire
depalletizers. The solution begins in
the trailer in the receiving area, where
tire receiver works from an adjustable
platform on the end of an extendable
conveyor. The platform can be set at
an ergonomic height, eliminating over-
head reaching.
Following a scan by a fixed camera-
imaging system, the tires are directed
to one of two lanes where they are
handled by two robots. When an
immediate demand for a SKU is made,
it’s moved to a location for picking.
Otherwise, tires are palletized and put
away in a stock location in the very
narrow aisle reserve storage area by a
Two gantry robots can handle up to 20,000 tires per day. VNA AGV. The AGV can interleave
tasks, retrieving a pallet needed for
tainability. “From the very beginning of other parts of the building as required,” replenishment after a putaway move.
the design process, our real estate team notes Adie-Henderson. It’s also easy to “When the system is at its best, it’s
was committed to making this a LEED- expand the fleet in the future. Since doing inbound putaway, replenishment
certified building,” says Adie-Henderson going live, Canadian Tire is already look- and order picking for outbound all at
(see box, p. 26). It has since been ing to expand the use of AGVs to other the same time,” says Adie-Henderson.
awarded the Gold standard for LEED. areas of the facility, including the move- Orders are picked by the robot to a cart;
From an operational standpoint, ment of some hazardous materials. when four carts are full, a tugger opera-
flexibility and scalability for the future A third important factor was a sys- tor delivers them to the shipping area.
were key drivers. That created its own tem to handle some 20,000 tires a day, More innovations were implemented
challenges. “One of the difficult things ranging from fast-moving items that in the conveyable/totable warehouse,
is that you’re doing the upfront plan- are stocked in the stores to a custom which features five four-level pick
ning years in advance of a facility going order for a replacement tire for a 1979 modules. Here, associates are directed
live,” says Woodcroft. “What’s more, Chevy. This was driven, in part, by by voice to pick conveyable items—or
you want to be able to have the flexibil- the well-being of associates. Canadian items like cans of paint that can be
ity and scalability to change or update Tire’s culture is to leverage its associ- conveyed in a tote—weighing up to 50
the facility once it’s opened based on ates for process improvements. “When pounds to conveyor. Items go to a cross-
external business requirements.” we talked to the team at the Brampton belt consolidation sorter with two types
One example of the design for flex- DC, tire handling was the area they of chutes: One handles items that weigh
ibility concept was the choice of fork suggested we automate since handling 15 pounds or less and another is outfit-
and VNA automatic guided vehicles for tires is one of the most physical and ted with motor-driven roller conveyor to
pallet movement. “The towlines were difficult products to handle in the control the descent of heavier products
fixed, but AGVs allow us the flexibility building,” says Woodcroft. “A newly weighing up to 50 pounds.
to change routes or relocate the AGVs in automated system could help improve Items are put in totes and palletized

for shipment in the pack station using
product segregation rules to prevent
putting food with aerosols or other
products. Once orders are palletized,
the pallet is moved by AGV to the out-
bound consolidation where they will be
loaded onto a truck for delivery.
While Building A is highly auto-
mated, Buildings B and C use conven-
tional materials handling and picking
processes directed by voice. Some hard-
to-handle products, like water heaters,
are handled by clamp trucks.
Items are picked to totes in pick modules and then conveyed to a cross-belt sortation
system for order consolidation.
Continuous improvement
The Bolton facility went live in July 13 weeks of going live, the facility was ners,” Adie-Henderson says.
2017. Given the time between design, receiving and shipping 1 million cubic Improved receiving processes have
build and go-live, requirements often feet of shipments per week. resulted in reduced inbound unload-
change before the start-up, and this one Continuous improvement has also ing times and the ability to turn dock
was no exception. For instance, Adie- been important to building on those doors faster than at the old facility. And,
Henderson notes, the company’s tire early successes. Working with its system as noted earlier, KPIs that matter most
business has grown by 25% in 2018. The integrator, Canadian Tire employees con- have improved on a regular basis. “In
design, however, has proved to be flexible tributed more than 400 ideas to improve one year here at Bolton, the gains in
and scalable—one of those key design processes, and so far more than 130 have safety and productivity are outpacing
criteria. “We’ve been able to handle the been implemented. “That mindset is what we did at Brampton over all that
increased volume and at a reduced cost,” such a part of the Canadian Tire fabric time,” says Woodcroft. “The best is yet
Adie-Henderson says. In fact, within and how we support our business part- to come.” •
Building sustainably at Canadian Tire

C reating a Gold LEED-certified
facility started with the choice of
building materials, including materi-
faint of heart,” says Adie-Henderson.
“But I can wait to turn on the heaters
much later in the season than in the old
The design also took employee
well-being into account. The facility
includes a well-appointed cafeteria,
als with Canadian content, along with building.” a Tim Hortons coffee shop, a bicycle
a system to track and trace all of the In particular, the Bolton DC received storage area and a shower. Finally, the
material used by Canadian Tire and its Gold LEED certification for the site’s new facility is delivering logistics ben-
vendors. remediation and storm water manage- efits that reduce the carbon footprint. It
Some of the design features are ment efforts, drought-tolerant land- is located nearer the intermodal yards,
common to other LEED facilities. For scaping and low-flow fixtures reducing reducing the distance traveled to get
instance, LED lights are used inside water use, and high-performance product from the rail yards to the DC.
and outside the facility, and lights only equipment reducing energy consump- Moreover, car pooling is encour-
come on in work areas like the pick tion. The roof was designed to enable aged, and there are electric car
modules when people are present. the addition of solar in the future. charging stations in the front of the
Large windows let in natural light, fur- The facility will eventually use hydro- building. “A year ago, there was one
ther reducing the need for energy use. gen-powered lift trucks with the hydro- car,” says Adie-Henderson. “Now,
An automated system controls air flow gen generated onsite. Canadian Tire there are eight cars parked there on a
and circulation. was the first retailer to generate its own consistent basis. Employee behavior
“Canadian winters are not for the hydrogen onsite at the Brampton DC. is changing.”

Automation/Retail
CUBING & WEIGHING:
In the money
From slotting to shipping, dimensioning equipment delivers a
rapid ROI as it provides data that expedites inventory movement
at several nodes across the supply chain.
G o back 30 years and dimensioning equipment was a somewhat unproven if

not radical idea.
Today, it is not just established, but it’s an essential component to
managing inventory in the distribution center and shipping department,
on over-the-road trailers, and in the billing cycle of parcel and pallet load
carriers. And by all indications, dimensioning equipment is getting more
important as you read this.
Just this summer, UPS raised the table stakes for correctly measuring
BY GARY FORGER,
CONTRIBUTING the dimensional weight of shipments. If shippers mis-state the dimensional
EDITOR weight of a parcel or pallet, a surcharge will follow.
Multiply that by the growth of e-commerce, not to mention steady
growth in irregularly shaped packages.
Then, add in the steadily increasing need for making best use of the
cube in the distribution center and the over-the-road trailer.
So what have you got? Nothing more than an equation for broader use of
weighing and cubing systems.
Why bother?
The two primary beneficiaries of cubing and weighing systems are DCs—
especially e-commerce ones—and freight carriers.
Quite simply, dimensioning systems collect and share critical inventory
data from the time that product of all types and sizes arrives at the DC
until it’s delivered to the final customer.
“Dimensional data is worth more than people think. This data is critical
across the supply chain,” says Clark Skeen, chairman of Cubiscan.
Skeen continues to explain how dimensional data also allows DC mangers
to make best use of real estate in their facilities. By dimensioning inventory

Weighing and cubing systems collect parcel data without slowing down the shipping process.

Automation/Retail
and feeding the data into a warehouse management system

(WMS), DC managers can maximize slotting efficiency. Sud-
denly, cube space utilization is maximized, reducing storage
costs. “If DC managers don’t store inventory optimally, they
may have to build another facility unnecessarily,” he adds.
While this practice is not new, “the leaders are on top of it,”
says Tommy Guest, national account manager at Rice Lake.
He estimates that 10% of cubing and weighing system sales are
tied to this application today.
Then, there’s the packaging and shipping process: the sweet
spot of cubing and weighing systems.
Starting in 2017, UPS and FedEx changed how they assess
shipping charges for packages from small parcels to full pallet
loads. The U.S. Postal Service follows the same practice.
Instead of using the actual weight, the carriers use what is
known as dimensional weight. This multiplies the three dimen-
sions of the package (also known as total package volume) and
divides it by a factor to arrive at what is known colloquially as
the “dim weight.” Shipping charges are then assessed according
to that number. The actual weight of the package or pallet is no
longer used to determine the shipping charge.
This summer, UPS went one step further when it imposed
a surcharge for incorrect dim weights supplied by shippers.
The list of these shipping charge corrections includes incorrect
or missing package dimensions, incorrect or missing package
dimensions that result in a correction to the dim weight, and
incorrect weights.
Suddenly, cubing and weighing systems are anything but
nice to have. Assessing back charges days later to recover the
surcharge is impractical at best. For most, that makes cubing
and weighing systems essential when that need is magnified in
It takes less than a second to collect both weight and
the e-commerce realm. dimensional data of parcels.
“It goes beyond getting the dim weight right,” says Jason
Wiley, business manager for transport and logistics at Mettler- Part of the flow
Toledo Cargoscan. “Shippers are increasingly seeing a need On the surface, cubing and weighing systems appear to be just
for more efficient handling in shipping as volumes and sizes one more opportunity to slow the flow of goods at the DC as well
increase rapidly. Dimensioning systems are part of the solu- as on trailers. Not so, says John Ashodian, SICK’s segment man-
tion here.” ager for logistics automation. In fact, “the dimensioning process
Furthermore, dim weight is applying increasing pressure is getting smoother as the technology advances,” he adds.
to reduce the size of all packages, explains Randy Neilson, Very little time is actually needed to accurately dimension
president of Cubiscan. “This is about putting more packages in shipments. Suppliers generally say it takes less than a second
polybags and taking out as much air as possible from boxes,” he for parcels and only two seconds for pallets. Systems with cam-
adds. Neilson estimates that half of shippers are far along on eras dimension more quickly than those without.
this developmental curve at this point. One supplier, Rice Lake, says it takes only 0.2 seconds to
Just as cubing and weighing systems help to cube out the weigh and dimension parcels. “Even at that speed, high accu-
DC, they do the same with trailers. And that helps to reduce racy is assured,” says Guest of Rice Lake.
costs for carriers whether full load or LTL. Beyond receiving, slotting and shipping, dimensioning sys-

tems have other applications, too.
Pick-and-pack operations as well as right-sizing
packages are key. The ability to measure items that
will go into a shipping box prior to packing maximizes
efficient use of packages, minimizing size whenever
possible. After all, the smaller the shipping package’s
dimensions, the lower the shipping cost.
Beyond dimensioning, the cameras on some of
the systems provide an image of the package prior to
shipment. If it arrives damaged on the other end, the
claims process is simplified with the availability of an
image of the package’s condition upon shipment.
“When people realize all that these systems can do
for their operations,” says Guest, “there’s not much
grumbling about adding them to their facility, espe- Full pallet loads can be weighed and dimensioned on the fly.
cially when they hear about the fast payback.”
The ROI for cubing and weighing systems is gener-
ally short. Suppliers all agree that some applications Looking to the future
pay for themselves in as little as three months with 18-month In fact, cubing and weighing data is becoming increasingly
payback on the high end. important far beyond the applications already discussed here,
“The number of orders and receipts a day have a direct say experts. “Increasingly, there is inherent value in having
impact on ROI,” says Neilsen. He points out that those com- connected data at the shipment location and across the supply
panies and supply chains that incorporate cubing and weigh- chain,” says Ashodian.
ing information into other data streams typically realize even “Cubing and weighing data closes the shipping loop
greater returns on their investment in the equipment. across the supply chain. It’s real-time information that goes
With so many uses, dimensioning equipment comes in far beyond a package’s status. It becomes part of predictive
many shapes and sizes—and with good reason. There’s a analytics and reducing uncertainty in the supply chain. The
range of items being measured from packages just 2 inches equipment eliminates the what-ifs,” adds Ashodian.
in height to full pallet loads. Mobility of the equipment As Neilson points out, the data collected by the equipment
ranges from handheld units to fixed-position systems on the is valuable far beyond its immediate use. By feeding the infor-
DC floor or ceiling. mation into related databases, dimensional data already aids
Some systems dimension and weigh static packages in other processes in the supply chain. Going forward, he fully
the packing department, while others sit over conveyors and expects the importance of this information to have broader
dimension packages as they move through a tunnel. Still oth- application and acceptance.
ers are ceiling mounted and dimension a full pallet load as a In fact, Wiley at Mettler-Toledo says dimensioning equip-
lift truck drives underneath. ment will be part of the change in how parcels and pallets are
The technology differs, too. Some use cameras, others do handled in the future. “This equipment will have to interface
not. Scales can be part of the system, but not always. with warehousing and shipping systems using artificial intelli-
As would be expected, product development is active. gence, not to mention autonomous vehicles inside and outside
Earlier this year at the Modex show, Mettler-Toledo pre- the four walls of the DC.”
viewed a pallet dimensioner mounted on a lift truck. Another major driver here is Amazon, says Guest. He
Cubiscan is also introducing a large-format, pallet dimen- expects sales of cubing and weighing systems to double
sioning system that dimensions freight as it passes under- in the next five years as e-commerce volumes continue to
neath the system on a forklift. increase rapidly.
SICK offers a new handheld dimensioner for both LTL and Perhaps Skeen of Cubiscan puts it best. As he has said before,
3PL applications. Meanwhile, Rice Lake’s lowest-cost unit “those who realize the value of dimensional data will prosper.
now interfaces directly with UPS Worldship. Those who don’t will be wasteful and uncompetitive.” •

Automation/Retail
NEXT-GENERATION
DATA CAPTURE EMERGES
New types of “edge” technologies promise new options for

real-time location insights. Learn how these emerging forms of
data capture might supplement traditional AIDC as well as the
importance of software platforms, analytics and applications
that take advantage of real-time location data.
BY ROBERTO MICHEL,
EDITOR AT LARGE
T he newest thing in data capture isn’t so much a device

people use to “capture” data with, it’s the autonomous
gathering of data by sensors and other edge technolo-
gies. Even companies that provide mobile handhelds
and other data capture devices are onboard with the
notion that autonomous capture of real-time location
data will be a boon to warehouse operations.
“Data capture devices are only part of the equation,”
says Bruce Stubbs, director of supply chain marketing
for Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions. “Other
technologies like sensors and beacons are allowing us to
utilize information captured in real time, often autono-
mously. Today, it’s not only bar coding and RFID (radio
frequency identification) data capture that is important,

it’s also beacons and sensors and blending these tech- ning of passive RFID tags remain vital to supply chains,
nologies to support a connected supply chain.” even while technologies like ultrawideband (UWB)
Honeywell, like some other providers of industrial and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons can enable
mobile devices, has embraced solutions for real-time new types of real-time locating system (RTLS) solu-
data capture and has put more attention on software tions. Research firm MarketsandMarkets estimates the
in recent years. Vendors generally recognize that bar worldwide RTLS market will grow from just under $3.2
code data collection and some human triggered scan- billion in 2018 to $8.79 billion in 2023, representing

Automation/Retail
22.5% compound annual growth.

Some warehouses could benefit from
technology such as UWB. Unlike tradi-
tional bar code scanning with handhelds,
today’s edge technologies can pull in
data without human intervention. The
newer edge technologies also deliver a
near real-time stream of data to reveal
the position of goods or assets, rather
than a point-in-time data grab. That may
sound great, but vendors point out that
multiple factors need to be considered
in sorting through this next-generation
technology, including edge hardware and
infrastructure costs, how much precision
is really needed, the value of the assets/
goods to be tracked, and perhaps above
Established forms of data capture using mobile devices remain vital to operations, but
all, the software capabilities needed to may be supplemented in some supply chains by real-time location tracking beacons
use the data. and systems.
New edge options is only as good as what it means to the Nehrenz. “With our solution, when you
Real-time location tracking technology operation,” says Nehrenz. associate items to a cart, we give them a
like UWB and BLE beacons aren’t likely UWB beacons are highly accurate, software user interface where they can
to replace more traditional technolo- but expensive. Nehrenz says roughly simply type in the ID for any item, and it
gies like bar codes. That’s because bar $5 per beacon is currently “about the will immediately show them where it is.”
codes are cheap and effective for basic floor” on UWB beacon costs. Given BlueCats uses a variety of edge tech-
track-and-trace purposes, even if they that price level, he adds, UWB beacons nologies, including UWB, BLE, global-
don’t generate a constant stream of data. tend to get used on assets like picking positioning system (GPS) sensor data
Passive RFID tags also have found useful carts or other moving containers that and RFID. Nehrenz says it’s important
niches, especially in retail supply chains, carry high-value materials. Having pin- that a location platform can work with
and today they are relatively inexpensive point visibility on such assets can have multiple edge technologies. While in
at the tag-level compared to UWB. a payoff by eliminating wasted time some instances a BlueCats software
The issue with real-time location looking for materials. engine is used on its own, through the
tracking technology choices, says Kurt At one company that makes glass vendor’s application programming inter-
Nehrenz, co-founder and chief of tech- panes for the automotive industry, track- faces (APIs), the location engine can
nology strategy with BlueCats, a provider ing carts in real time with UWB bea- pass information to warehouse manage-
of real-time location solutions, is to cons has cut out the time the company ment system (WMS) or labor manage-
select the appropriate technology for previously spent sending people out to ment solutions, says Nehrenz.
each application. As part of that assess- locate panes on specific carts. The Blue- A good location software engine, says
ment, Nehrenz explains, organizations Cats location software is able to do an Nehrenz, adds context to raw position
need to consider the value of the assets association between panes of glass with data, such as determining when goods or
or inventory that need to be tracked, the bar codes placed on a UWB-enabled assets move between zones, or if some-
cost of the grid network needed to cap- cart, thus providing real-time visibility thing being tracked crosses into a zone
ture and transmit the data, and payback for every item on every moving cart. where it’s not supposed to be. “You’re cre-
factors such as whether real-time track- “For some operations, they can lose ating and managing rules … so that when
ing can significantly increase productiv- tons of time trying to find specific high- things happen, you can do something use-
ity. “Real-time positioning [technology] value items that are on the move,” says ful with the information,” he says.

Vendors generally recognize that bar code
data collection and some human triggered
scanning of passive RFID tags remain vital
to supply chains, even while technologies
like UWB and BLE beacons can enable
new types of RTLS solutions.
Location-driven systems
Vendors point out that while newer loca-
tion technology like UWB is exciting, it
is the optimization of processes based
on location visibility that matters. One
vendor with this view is Locanis, a Ger-
man software provider that offers a sup-
ply chain execution software system that
leverages real-time positioning beacons
and technology, including UWB.
According to Bengt Turner, CEO of
Locanis, while at first the company devel- ing resources close together to minimize positioning, RFID and bar code tech-
oped its own position tracking hardware, travel and make it easier to interleave nologies, Locanis Production Warehouse
today its focus is on software. Locanis tasks, says Turner. Outside the four System can also use data from sensors on
partners with providers of location tech- walls of a DC, real-time shipment track- production lines. “The goal is to manage
nology vendors such as Ubisense and ing and yard operations can be managed everything as a team of resources that
Pozyx, using the resulting data to feed the by the Site Optimizer software, making works together in terms of what is hap-
algorithms in the Locanis Site Optimizer use of real-time positioning data fed into pening holistically,” he says.
system. The system’s functions span the system to optimize dock assignments
WMS, yard management, as well as trans- and yard activity. Software as lever
portation event management. Location management in the yard The key to benefiting from RTLS data
“We are completely focused on opti- and DC combined with some calcula- is to have software that can monitor
mization—on how you distribute tasks to tions around demand can also be used parameters and trigger adjustments to
assets and resources in an intelligent and by the system to predict when a DC operations before problems escalate,
orchestrated way,” says Turner. will exceed storage capacity and recom- says Honeywell’s Stubbs. “The value
Since UWB can pinpoint the real- mend the movement of empty trailers to comes from a proactive dashboard,” says
time position of a resource like a lift a dock area to serve as temporary space, Stubbs. “If you’re just looking at trends
truck, a pallet or employees wearing explains Turner. “Real-time position after the fact, it might as well be a writ-
UWB-enabled badges to within centi- technology opens up a new dimension of ten report.”
meter accuracy, the Locanis system uses things you can’t do normally because you For example, says Stubbs, Honeywell’s
that insight to assign work in the most know so much more about where your Operational Acuity solution is able to take
efficient way. “Our software algorithms resources really are,” he says. the latest activity data from Honeywell
use real-time positioning to select the Locanis’s users, says Turner, include voice-enabled warehouse solutions and
right resources at the right time … a global consumer goods company with spot trends such as a pick location being
[which] minimizes idle time and empty installations in Germany and China, skipped or delays at certain locations,
running of assets,” Turner says. a global brewer with installations in so managers can take action. Similarly,
Within a warehouse, position knowl- Austria, and more recently a system is Honeywell’s warehouse execution system
edge over resources and where inventory under implementation in Asia by a global (WES) solution, known as Momentum, is
is placed makes it possible to create effi- manufacturer of heavy vehicles. In addi- able to monitor the real-time progress of
cient storage in a flexible way, thus keep- tion to working with UWB, laser-based work going through a warehouse’s auto-

Automation/Retail
Handheld devices for data capture

have evolved, but in the future, may be
augmented by real-time positioning
technology in some warehouses.
another—that might be useful to a

system used for warehouse execution
or labor resource management. Such
alerts can be run and handled within
Savannah, Wheeler says, but the
platform is also capable of sending
out alerts to a WMS or other execu-
tion system.
Wheeler agrees with the view that
multiple factors like value of the
asset and cost of the hardware play
into which edge technology best fits
an application. UWB is well suited
mated materials handling systems and and actions, says Mark Wheeler, direc- to high-precision tracking of assets or
see if work is starting to slow down or if tor of supply chain solutions for Zebra people (using special tags embedded
certain actions should be taken to smooth Technologies. In addition to bar code in employee badges), while for many
out the flow of order fulfillment work. scanning devices and solutions, Zebra types of inventory, RFID or bar codes
Stubbs sees real-time location data has expanded over the years into RFID, may provide adequate visibility.
from beacons or sensors as another RTLS, and has an Internet of Things Within warehousing and manufac-
source of data capture that can feed into (IoT) information platform called Savan- turing locations, Wheeler adds, one
proactive analytics in solutions such as nah. The Savannah platform’s location of the top applications for RTLS is to
Operational Acuity or Honeywell’s WES. engine that handles data from UWB and track the location of returnable trans-
Ideally, he adds, managers should be other edge technologies, says Wheeler, is port items (RTIs). Location technology
able to “subscribe” to specific types of an outgrowth of Zebra’s RTLS solutions can prevent RTIs from getting lost, says
real-time data of interest. The range of business. Wheeler, in addition to knowing where
technologies involved might span bar According to Wheeler, location engine the goods on RTIs are.
codes, RFID, location beacons, real-time software should be able to work with mul- “The goals with real-time loca-
view of automation with WES, or voice tiple edge technologies. “The key is that tion tracking generally are to drive
system activity and trends. as we integrate more RTLS technology high levels of asset utilization … and
“It’s a bigger picture now,” says Stubbs. into more and more business processes … minimizing or eliminating the loss
“Data capture spans all these disparate that we make the capturing of the data, of RTIs through better visibility over
pieces of technology than capture data, the securing of the connections to the those assets,” Wheeler says. “The vis-
and instead of throwing it into a big edge devices, the analytics and the access ibility you get with RTLS also helps to
bucket—it’s a matter of logically parsing to that information, as standard and as error-proof operations. For instance,
it into buckets of information that people straightforward as possible,” he says. a solution can use RFID to monitor
can subscribe to.” Core functions of a location the movement of goods on a dock and
Another key to effective leveraging engine, Wheeler explains, are map- generate a notification if something
of technology like UWB beacons is the ping and positioning knowledge for has been sitting on a dock too long. It’s
flexibility and capability of the “location each asset being tracked. Using that about leveraging tags and sensors to
engine” or software platform that takes real-time view, an engine can generate automatically generate actions to pre-
in real-time data, establishes location alerts—such as an asset leaving one vent problems, rather than just detect-
insights, and filters data to trigger alerts area or zone of a facility and entering ing a problem after the fact.” •

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Automation/Retail
Robots at
GEODIS The global 3PL turned to mobile
collaborative robots to rev up its e-commerce
fulfillment operations. One measurable
result: a 2x improvement in productivity.
M
BY BOB TREBILCOCK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
ore than 6.5 million. That’s how many units GEODIS, the global
third-party logistics (3PL) provider, had picked to a fleet of mobile
collaborative robots (Locus Robotics, locusrobotics.com) as of mid-
December 2018.
175 and counting. That’s the number of cobots GEODIS had deployed
across its North American facilities as of that date.
2x. That’s the productivity improvements that GEODIS realized since it first
deployed a fleet of 21 bots in a facility outside of Indianapolis in January 2018
following a three-month pilot, according to Alan McDonald, senior director of
continuous improvement, and Kevin Stock, the senior vice president of engi-
neering.
Those are just some of the numbers that GEODIS believes make a compelling
case for mobile collaborative robots in warehouse and distribution environments,
like e-commerce, that involve a significant volume of each picks. In GEODIS’
case, the number of units picked during peak season increased 30% year over
year. But it’s not just the drive for more productivity that led GEODIS to robotics.
Customers are also demanding innovation.
“The market is definitely driving us to new technologies like robotics,” notes
McDonald. “Our customers are asking us what innovations we are looking at for in the same logistics hubs during record
the future. In fact, not a week goes by that we don’t talk to an existing or poten- low unemployment?
tial customer who wants to know where we’re headed.” “There is a lot of competition for
Adds Stock: “Delivering on KPIs and costs are considered table stakes for a associates in the areas where we have
3PL. Now, the question is: What else are you bringing to the table?” warehouses, so we have to make them
For GEODIS, one of the answers to that question is mobile collaborative a more desirable place to work,” Stock
robots, which also help the global 3PL address the other big issue for warehous- says. “We’re installing better breakrooms,
ing and distribution operators: How do we staff a facility with reliable and produc- better lighting and doing what we can to
tive associates at a time when more and more e-commerce facilities are opening make the jobs easier to learn and perform

From left: Kevin Stock, senior vice president
of engineering and Alan McDonald, senior
director of continuous improvement.
Chris Cone / Getty Images for Peerless Media
successfully. Robotics is part of that.” and generated more than $9.25 billion ages 140 facilities on 20 campuses, rep-
This is a look at how one of the world’s in revenue in 2017, the last year for resenting 43 million square feet. It serves
leading 3PLs chose and implemented a which results are available. The com- six defined verticals, including retail
mobile collaborative robotics solution that pany services 165,000 customers, with and e-commerce fulfillment, consumer
it is now deploying across its footprint. 40,500 employees across 120 countries electronics, fast-moving consumer goods,
and 70 million square feet of ware- health care, industrial and automotive.
Investigating robots house space. It moves more than 100 As with other 3PL providers, one of
With headquarters in Paris, GEODIS million parcels a year. the key trends impacting the business is
is one of the largest 3PLs in the world In the United States, GEODIS lever- the growth of e-commerce fulfillment.

Automation/Retail
“It’s not pallets and cases anymore,” An order selector scans an item to one
says Stock. “The volume of e-commerce of the order totes.
orders is soaring and that means a lot

more touches and a lot more people in a innovation team visited sites where cobots
very tight labor market.” were up and running; they visited com-
And, as with other 3PL providers, pany headquarters to learn more about
GEODIS is looking to technology to the various providers and their cultures;
address those issues in an industry that and asked the potential providers to
historically eschewed automation in develop a business case. The fact that this
favor of best conventional warehousing is a new technology, and that many of the
processes. GEODIS has installed auto- providers are startups, made the evalua-
mated pick towers, conveyor and sortation a different process than if GEODIS
tion systems, and put walls in some of its had been looking at a conventional, estab-
operations—and it is working on a project lished automation solution.
to use drones to take inventory in its “You not only want the right solu-
facilities. But, in its e-commerce picking tion, you want the right provider,” says
operations, it still relied heavily on con- McDonald. “Vendors visited our site to
ventional pick processes such as pick-to- demonstrate what they could do. More
cart enabled by wearable wrist units and a importantly, when we visited them on
warehouse management system (WMS). their home turf, we wanted to know
In early 2017, the 3PL concluded what was on their road map. It was
that conventional was no longer sus- a solution from one facility to another? great that they could do something now,
tainable, according to McDonald. That That April, the new team went to but we wanted to know what were their
spring, GEODIS put together an inno- ProMat 2017 to see what the industry had plans for the future. What was in devel-
vation team to investigate new technol- to offer. “We were deliberate about who opment that they could tell us about?”
ogies. Important criteria included: the we spoke to,” McDonald says, “and after By the end of the summer, they had
capital investment required, was it user we narrowed the solutions we were inter- chosen a provider for a three-month-
friendly and easy to operate, was it scal- ested in down to collaborative robots, we long pilot involving 21 bots. The decid-
able and finally, was it mobile—if nec- narrowed that down to a few providers.” ing factors went beyond the solution.
essary, how easily could GEODIS move Over the course of the summer, the “Truthfully, we bounced back and forth
The new business model

A utomation-as-a-service is one of the emerging business models in the materials
handling automation space. In this model, a solution provider owns, maintains and in
some cases, even operates, the equipment or an entire automated warehouse for a fee.
The cost is often on a per-pallet, per-case or per-pick basis.
That includes robotics. Typically two or three options are available, similar to the lift
truck industry. They include a purchase option; purchase and rental option, where you
purchase a baseline fleet and then rent additional robots on an as needed basis, such as
peak and a robot-as-a-service model in which you pay a price based on how the robot is
operated, such as a cost per pick.
In this instance, GEODIS chose the service model, which is less capital intensive than
a purchase option. “It’s a very competitive market right now, and we spoke to multiple
providers who were offering a robotics-as-a-service model,” says Alan McDonald, GEO-
DIS senior director of continuous improvement. “I think they all know they need to make it
as easy as they can for people to adopt the technology.”

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Automation/Retail
between potential solution providers, but which they were encouraged to name GEODIS works with the cobots. “It’s
we chose the partner we chose because during the pilot. very easy to learn to pick to the bots. It’s
we not only liked their software, but “If you watch some of our videos longer to learn how to operate them,”
there was a good cultural match between online, our operators say they often talk says McDonald. “The more you work
our companies, and they had the same to the bots,” McDonald says. “So, while with them, the more you learn about
vision as we did. The fact that they had productivity was an important metric, what kind of robot-to-operator ratio you
experience in operations helped.” we also considered the engagement of need based on the volume of orders.” At
employees and the fact that we could present, GEODIS uses between three
Rolling out a solution make a mundane task more interesting. and six bots per associate, depending on
Implementing a new technology, espe- That leads to better retention.” the volume and density of orders to be
cially one for which there isn’t a lot Another soft benefit that could not picked in a given day.
of use cases to learn from, is often a be counted out: customer satisfaction. In addition to productivity improve-
multi-step process. That was the case “When our customers ask us what we’re ments and customer satisfaction, cobots
for GEODIS, although the technology doing with technology, we can point to are easy to implement compared to
proved itself fairly quickly. the robots,” McDonald says. other technologies. A new robot can be
It began with a planned three-month In early January 2018, GEODIS for- received, unpacked and in operation in a
pilot program using 21 cobots in an mally transitioned from pilot to go live. matter of hours. Similarly, an associate—
Indianapolis e-commerce fulfillment During that period, communication was or an office employee helping out on the
center. They developed a process to important: It was important that the floor during peak—can be picking very
batch pick single line orders to a tote whole team, and not just order selectors, quickly. Finally, for the distribution team,
that would then be sorted out at pack- understand their jobs were not threat- it’s exciting to be on the leading edge of
ing. “Once we selected a supplier, we ened. “We held meetings for all of our an emerging technology.
did a deep dive, starting in October operators, whether they would interface “There is a perception that I think is
2017,” says McDonald. “We compared with a robot or not,” says Stock. “The accurate that GEODIS is on the front line
pick rates to the existing cluster pick- important word was: collaborative. We of this technology,” says McDonald. “If we
to-cart process we were using in that made sure our operators knew that a bot were to wait until the technology matures
operation.” Additionally, there was some was not going to pick the product, so to adopt it, we’d be behind the curve.”
software development for the interface this was about enabling our people to be Adds Stock: “We want to be on the
between the GEODIS WMS and the more productive while making their jobs cutting edge, and as a result, we’re
robotic control system, along with some easier. It wasn’t about replacing people.” creating new opportunities for our
modifications to the pack operation. At the facility level, there have been business, and for the people who work
GEODIS quickly learned that in ongoing learnings over the last year, as for us.” •
addition to productivity improvements,
soft benefits needed to be factored into
the decision. For one, the training time
to get an associate up and running with
a cobot was quicker than learning how
to pick to cart. They were easy to oper-
ate. Today, the cobots can communicate
in the four languages most common to
the facility: English, Spanish, Burmese
and Chin, which is a language spoken
predominantly in Myanmar. For another,
associates liked working with the cobots,
Here, an associate uses a wrist-

mounted scanner to confirm a pick.

As wearable devices get smaller, the
Cloud computing power supporting
them is becoming smarter.
MODERN
MOBILITY
Wear it while you work
In the hunt for the next level of productivity, mobile devices
can help pave the way—if they can get out of the way.
BY JOSH BOND, SENIOR EDITOR

E
Automation/Retail
ach year, the processing power, size and capabil- seeing are second nature. At this point, the idea of utilizing
ity of mobile devices improve. The same holds synergies between man and machine is not a far reach but a
for consumer or industrial devices, although the small nudge.”
appetite for cutting-edge technology is very dif-
ferent in those two sectors. Warehousing and Technology on the move
distribution are proudly risk-averse, and even those who Bryce Keeney, chief technology officer of PC manufacturer
have sought to modernize are often limited by unwieldy Teguar, remembers becoming fascinated by the variety of
legacy software and entrenched processes that have changed ways customers wanted to use a mobile computer. The same
little over the decades. device might be docked to a station or forklift, carried by hand
Call it a perfect storm, tipping point or paradigm shift, but or outfitted with any number of accessories to support tasks
a confluence of factors is poised to rapidly and radically trans- throughout a facility.
form the use of mobile devices in warehouses and DCs. Although the form factor excited them, many customers
The impending support sunset for Windows mobile operat- underestimated the software implications of moving to a tablet
ing systems (OS) is driving a mass migration to Android OS, a from a fixed terminal with large screen, keyboard and mouse.
platform that promises lifelong support for enterprise devices, “If customers haven’t put any real money into the soft-
easy integration of smart devices like tablets and wearables, ware side, they’re taking a program designed to be dis-
and improved security. played on a 15-inch monitor and want it to fit on a 10-inch
Cloud-based or managed services are growing in popularity, tablet,” Keeney says. “Without rewriting software, that can
decreasing the IT burden while increasing long-term opera- be difficult.”
tional agility. Analytics, artificial intelligence, neural networks Desktop screens tend to be oriented in landscape mode—
and machine learning are improving the ability of mobile wider than tall—but not tablets. When a touchscreen replaces
devices and voice-directed solutions to capture and process a mouse, buttons should be bigger. Keeney says it might make
data to optimize operations. sense to pre-program a tablet’s physical buttons to perform the
This is all happening against a backdrop of vastly greater most common actions, or sequence of actions.
savviness among users and solution providers. “Just asking these questions is a great step that some peo-
“There’s a lot of awareness now in terms of the ‘fit for ple aren’t thinking about,” Keeney says. “When I go and watch
use’ of a device,” says Krishna Venkatasamy, chief technol- a warehouse operator who has been doing something for 10
ogy officer for Lucas Systems. “Ten years ago customers years, they’re crazy fast. If you plan new technology deploy-
would buy a scan gun whether they needed it or not. But ments so operators can continue to be excellent, you’ll need
now if they’re using voice for data entry, why carry the gun, to know whether making a button bigger saves 2 seconds from
too? Buyers are smarter and are deciding on devices based each transaction.”
on their fitness for the application.” Mark Wheeler, director of supply chain solutions for Zebra
The industry is moving toward shrinking form factors for Technologies, agrees, adding that touch-based user interface
devices, Venkatasamy says, especially in voice-directed appli- is “no small matter.” While it’s still new to many warehouse
cations. In fact, he says some customers are now working operations whose technology adoption is lagging, new hires and
to use Lucas’ technology on a smart watch. If users seldom trainees are likely to be familiar with the interface. Wheeler
need a screen, a smart watch’s processing power, memory and says the richer, more productive and easier-to-learn touchscreen
Wi-Fi connectivity make it a fit for a stand-alone device. has big appeal for rapid training, onboarding and closing the gap
As devices become smaller, more capable and more wear- between the best workers and the average.
able, they are rewriting the concept of “data entry,” accord- “There are still a lot of gains to be had in the warehouse simply
ing to Bruce Stubbs, director of supply chain marketing at by taking advantage of what the Android platform has to offer,”
Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions. In the not-too- Wheeler says. “Leveraging it involves designing the input and
distant future, technology elements like voice, touchscreens output of the technology—what information has to be presented
and even augmented reality will combine to create a more to the worker and what data they in turn capture—to achieve a
natural human interface. smoother flow of data and smoother workflows.”
“Having to hold, point and pull a trigger is mechanical, and For example, purpose-built wrist-worn wearable devices have
takes time and thought,” Stubbs says. “Speaking, listening and been available for the same use case for 25 years: each pick and

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Automation/Retail
Ergonomic design for wearables can ensure Even equipping workers with a con-
productivity and comfort for entire shifts.
sumer smart phone leverages the device’s
array of sensors and cameras. EVS has
developed a warehouse management
system (WMS) that is native to iOS, the
Apple operating system on iPhones and
iPads. The Cloud-based software uses
artificial intelligence and machine learn-
ing to optimize processes and deliver
tasks to an associate’s iPhone.
An Apple device’s platform of sen-
sors enables managers to measure the
case pick. But the same devices paired ferent, Wheeler says, since the threat previously unmeasured, like number of
with the right software can serve tasks is not drops but thumps and abrasions. steps, speed, travel routes, or use the
like picking, sorting and, increasingly in While the finger, wrist, arm or head cameras to capture images of goods and
e-commerce, returns. Returns are often a mount better be secure, it shouldn’t be so shipments. Instead of walkie-talkies
very labor-intensive process, Wheeler says, secure it could cause injury if caught on and cell phones, it becomes possible to
and ergonomic, multi-function devices something. And if the goal is to improve FaceTime someone. Offices in Boulder,
can help speed the process of identifying, productivity, it had better be comfortable. Colo., can contact a picker in Tennes-
documenting and categorizing items. “It’s easy to build something that’s see to find a mistake and fix it, Brown
“For the warehouse, this is a huge comfortable for an hour,” Wheeler says, says, and much quicker than a supervi-
one-time transition away from the char- “but we need something that doesn’t just sor could go and find the picker.
acter-based entry that has been around work for a pilot, but works for years.” One of the most promising features
since the advent of real-time warehouse Attaching a device to a worker also of smart phone deployment is more
management systems,” he says. “It’s an unlocks all-new performance data for accurate indoor location. GPS reception
opportunity to fundamentally change managers. Turnover, hiring and retain- works outdoors, but indoors it struggles
systems that are mission-critical. I don’t ing remain a challenge, but could be with racks or metallic inventory. Precise
think it’s an overstatement to say this is impacted by an enhanced ability to iden- locations enable the blending of robotics
the richest opportunity for future-proof- tify and reward top performers. Paired and people, choreographed through the
ing ever in the industry.” with analytics, this data can reveal even software. Lucas Systems’ Venkatasamy
more valuable trends. says current location technology tends to
The wearhouse “When you’re monitoring every trans- be limited to predicting locations. Citing
Wearable devices are rapidly gaining action you can see what work they’re studies, he describes how collaborative
traction, according to Stubbs, who cites doing and how. By the way they’re oper- robots, or cobots, could work better with
Honeywell research indicating as much ating, you can find who could be at risk humans if the system can guide while
as 85% of customers plan to move to of an injury,” Stubbs says. “Or by the way enabling voice-based communication
some sort of wearable device in the next their performance has been trending for between humans, robots and software.
three to five years. the last couple of weeks, is the employee “Moving from a gun to a smart phone
“Throughout 2018, clients in general a candidate to leave?” to a watch to glasses, these are very incre-
have affirmed that research,” Stubbs says. Labor management software has mental improvements in what happens
“Going from paper to voice is obviously predictors that can capture that type of at the pick face,” Venkatasamy says. “But
a huge gain, but going from handheld to information and produce a sort of risk coordinating pickers alongside robots
wearable can be a game-changer as well.” rating to management, Stubbs says. If helps address changing order profiles,
When a device goes from being hand- the bottom five people are likely to leave, customer requirements, and all the things
held to fastened to a worker’s body, it maybe they need advanced training or that make distribution more complex.
opens several ergonomic concerns. The other engagement to try to avoid a no- These are enabled by software and are
concept of ruggedness is completely dif- show on Monday. less about hardware.”

Software doesn’t have Wearables are already changing the
way, place and detail in which data is
to be hard collected.
That software is more capa-
ble, powerful and sophis-
ticated than ever before, are just another example of software that
but it is also simpler. Scott can use data to improve operations.
Deutsch, president of North Neural networks, on the other hand,
America for Ehrhardt + are a tad less familiar, and are the
Partner, recalls the old way: engines behind Alexa, Siri and similar
Investment in a business products. Because saying something
intelligence tool accompa- multiple times is unacceptable in a
nied by one or two “data warehouse, new voice systems leverage
jockeys” who built reports warehouse-specific neural networks to
that were static. sources so they can create multiple optimize performance beyond consumer-
“You’d see a couple screens posted on types of views, customized and updated grade voice assistants.
picks per hour, error rate, elements we’ve in real time. It is not a reinvention of “The 95% accuracy of Alexa would
seen in business forever,” Deutsch says. any wheels, Deutsch says, but is the way get you tossed out the door in a ware-
“Now there’s a whole level of analytics businesses have created data integration house,” Deutsch says. “There’s a big dif-
that can be shared beyond just the one or forever. Order data and purchasing data ference between that and 99.99%, and
two people to give a sense of the perfor- sits on the enterprise resource plan- you could not get enough computing
mance of the whole business in real time.” ning (ERP) system, feeds to the WMS, performance to do that until a year ago.”
Analytics engines have multiple data which feeds to voice, and analytics tools Neural networks and machine learn-
ing enable software to learn from its mis-
Medline increases warehouse productivity takes, using every transaction to continu-
M edline is a global manufac- more outbound customer orders ously refine itself. Deutsch says the past
turer and distributor serving with its voice-directed picking solu- 24 months have produced a more than
the healthcare industry with medi- tion. With the voice-directed picking 25% improvement in voice recognition—
cal supplies and clinical solutions. system and work execution system even among some of the most challeng-
Headquartered in Northfield, Ill., (Lucas Systems, lucasware.com), ing global dialects.
the company offers more than workers are able to move freely with- While software makes itself smarter,
550,000 medical devices and sup- out a wired headset as orders are
it also makes life less difficult for IT
port services through more than processed.
staff. Deutsch notes that more than half
1,400 direct sales representa- The new computers and software
tives who are dedicated points of also enabled Medline to transition its of his company’s new business comes
contact for customers across the warehouse teams seamlessly to an from managed services, or SaaS (soft-
continuum of care. After choos- Android OS as Windows CE support ware as a service), which makes opera-
ing new touch computers for its ends in 2020. tions personnel less dependent on IT
warehouse operations as part of “It functions like a smart phone staff for support.
an upgrade for its voice-directed with the ruggedness and security of “People reading this are in opera-
picking solution, the company an industrial device, says Paul An-
tions, but investment comes from IT,”
improved warehouse picking, cona, vice president of engineering
Deutsch says. “More importantly, we’re
increased employee productivity operations for Medline. “That was a
and future-proofed its enterprise critical differentiator for us and makes finding that CIOs are interested in mov-
with an Android-based device. it easy to deploy across our ware- ing more of the budget into innovation
The new touch computer (Zebra house branches where we already as opposed to the traditional 99% of the
Technologies, www.zebra.com), have seen an increase in productivity. budget going to system maintenance.
paired with the supplier’s rugged It also offers us Android OS, which Now they can think creatively about
Bluetooth headset, helps the com- we wanted to future-proof our tech- what they might like to do or was never
pany quickly and efficiently process nology.”
affordable before.” •

Automation/Retail

AUTOMATED STORAGE:
Making
the future
more certain
With change the only constant, automation
hardware and software is tasked with ensuring
success no matter what may come.
B
y now, many readers’ peak seasons seeks to shed its legacy as a fixed, long-term
have begun to wind down. Of course, commitment only for those with deep pock-
that means strategizing for next year ets and massive facilities. In fact, as solution
can begin in earnest. But for those providers describe it, that legacy is officially
seeking to modernize distribution opera- old news.
tions, plenty of reasons can be found to be “With the rise of robotics and new auto-
optimistic as the new year unfolds. Sure, the mated solutions, you can make plans that
labor market remains bleak and service levels are different than five years ago,” says Jerry
somehow keep getting more demanding, but Johnson, business development manager for
the hardware and software to meet those chal- Vanderlande Industries. “That growth plan was
lenges has come a long way in recent years. basically your only option, and you had limited
Automated storage and retrieval systems decisions in response to change. Now, there are
(AS/RS) are prominent in this new solution more flexible growth opportunities.”
mix for operations of all sizes. Most AS/RS
systems are designed specifically to offset Charting the course
fluctuations in labor, volume and SKU/order Given the unpredictability of the market and
profiles. Still, the pace of change has shifted our behavior as consumers, Johnson says, it can
the goalposts farther to the extremes. be hard to plan. In the coming years, will you
Modularity and flexibility are now the driv- need more throughput or more SKUs or will
ing forces behind innovation as automation the quantity of items per order change? Any

Automation/Retail
Automated storage can support the flexibility to meet peaks as needed while reducing temporary labor by 70%.
technology that potentially restricts nim- provides us with a better opportunity to you can create software that’s far more
bleness in the face of those possibilities is do a good job, find the right solution, and modular. I mean really modular,” Johnson
a non-starter. In recent years, as the entire define the right way to get scalability into says. “It makes it extremely simple to just
industry sought to clear out the cobwebs the designs,” Johnson says. add new functionalities. So if you want
of pre-Amazon operations, the conversa- Shuttles once bound to a single aisle to add batching, it’s easy. We now have a
tions around investment in automation can now move from one to another. You true plug-and-play process.”
were exceedingly cautious. can add extra shuttles and lifts to boost Ken Ruehrdanz, manager of the dis-
“With that caution, a past project throughput without adding extra aisles. tribution systems market for Dematic,
might typically have a target or peak Want to move an AS/RS from one loca- says increased standardization and less
year three to five years after go-live,” tion to another inside a facility, or to customization makes system support a
Johnson says. “Today customers are con- another facility altogether? No sweat. much simpler process for customer and
sidering seven to 10-year horizons, and Additionally, the latest software stands system supplier.
one project had an even longer plan for ready to easily support these changes. “In the past if you ever needed support,
their DC.” This flexibility is supported by the it was for a one-off system. As a user, I
Whatever the size or scope of the growing popularity of the microservices don’t want to be the only one using this
project, Johnson says activity and invest- architecture for software—an approach solution,” Ruehrdanz says. “An AS/RS—or
ment are growing at “tremendous” levels. that allows for compact, less expensive any materials handling automation—is an
The confidence boost comes from a and really modular hardware and soft- ongoing, living solution that is constantly
better understanding of how to phase a ware elements. being adjusted. It’s very rare to put one in
project to ensure flexibility. “Especially with microservice-based and have it just stay the same.”
“The most important thing is that it IT products coming up, that means So when 10,000 new SKUs come

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Automation/Retail
along, the software and controls can stay Reverse logistics Ruehrdanz says. The concept might con-
identical, but the system will be ready Getting orders out the door is one thing, sist of an automated system in the back of
to handle a different tote size or load- but processing returns is a fundamental a retail store where high density is ideal.
handling devices. element of system design for e-com- Inventory in such systems is then used for
The workstations at the AS/RS are merce companies. “Online shopping fulfilling online orders or buy online, pick
another area where adaptability is impor- continues to increase, and the percent- up in store (BOPIS) orders. This prevents
tant. In the early phases of goods-to-per- age of returns is now significant enough in-store pickers from competing with
son solutions, Ruehrdanz says stations that the volume is there to think about walk-in customers, alleviates pressure on
were very customized and performance automating it,” Ruehrdanz says. “The regional DCs and enhances responsive-
varied from one to another. Now that business case is becoming stronger.” ness to local customers. This has already
they are standardized, pre-tested and Ruehrdanz says pouch sorters are a begun with grocery companies, Rueh-
pre-engineered, they can provide more great fit for these companies due to their rdanz says, but will soon move into gen-
predictable system performance. ability to act as a sorter, buffer and tem- eral merchandise.
For example, the modular worksta- porary storage. After a return is checked Another variant of the micro-fulfillment
tion might have started as a 1:1 setup in, refunded and identified for potential center is a stand-alone facility in a high-
with a single donor tote and single repackaging, it can be placed in the traffic urban area that acts only as a pick-
order tote at a time. If the activity pro- pouch sorter. up center or place to dispatch delivery
file changes and it now makes sense “It then stays in suspended anima- trucks. Until lately, few would think of put-
to fulfill retail and e-commerce orders, tion, so to speak, until another order ting a warehouse in an urban area, but AS/
the station can be easily adjusted to a comes in for that item,” he says. “It’s RS can ensure such a facility is compact
1:6 setup handling six orders at a time. more effective since you don’t have to and efficient. A shuttle-based inventory
Modular hardware and software mean put it back into storage.” storage and goods-to-person workstation
that transition can occur in a matter of Pocket sortation systems could also can reduce order fulfillment cost and pro-
days as opposed to several weeks. be an alternative to unit sorters and put cessing time.
To verify the effectiveness of any walls. Put walls will remain a viable A goods-to-person system can make
modifications before peak, Chris Cap- option, but Capshaw says they can any retail store employee productive, but
shaw, executive director of logistics require more labor and two to three Ruehrdanz notes the increasing popularity
solutions sales for SSI Schaefer Systems more touches per order. Alternatively, of goods-to-robot variants.
International, recommends simula- the larger initial investment in pouches “We see a trend of using goods-to-robot
tions—virtual and real. This will prove is compatible with robotic loading where for piece picking,” he says. “It’s small now,
out throughput and efficiency while a robot places items on a conveyor that but there’s a significant growth potential.
highlighting any shortcomings with then drops items into a pouch. Pouch That trend will bring the AS/RS along
slotting or other strategies. Test runs sorters rated for 3-kilogram loads are with it.”
might include allowing the system to be suited to fashion items, while a 10-kilo- Vanderlande’s Johnson also empha-
backed up under controlled conditions gram model might be better suited to sizes the micro fulfillment center trend,
and then releasing the pent-up orders to general merchandise. where the building of future central DCs
simulate peak volume. “What’s really driving small and medium- will be accompanied by nearby specialty
Having identified that being able to sized businesses to automate is labor avail- satellites.
sell more SKUs is an advantage, Cap- ability,” Capshaw says. “If they were used to “If the ideal solution is more storage-
shaw says many companies are focused hiring 2,000 through peak before, afterward driven or throughput-driven, that can help
on a system’s ability to add SKUs, either they might need only 600.” us decide the direction of the technology
by organic growth or as the result of an Modularity and scalability of AS/RS used,” Johnson says. “Do you anticipate an
acquisition or other one-time spike in systems also lends itself to smaller sys- increase in picking, storage or value-added
SKU count. This strategy is among the tems, which are not exclusively appealing services, even something as simple as a
factors driving increased focus on direct to small operations. Even large compa- paper wrap? We can work with a client
case handling to either supplement or nies are developing what the industry to understand that and prepare them for
replace decanting into totes. is calling “micro-fulfillment centers,” future success.” •

ADORE ME SERVICES:
SMALL SPACE,
BIG
AUTOMATION
Krutin Shah (center), director of distribution, and his
team at Adore Me Services.
Adore Me Services packs a lot of

automation power into a relatively
small space to deliver the right
customer experience.
A
BY BOB TREBILCOCK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
nyone who has watched “Tiny House

Hunters” knows that going small is one of
the hottest trends in the real estate mar-
ket. Whether it’s baby boomers downsizing for retire-
ment or young couples simplifying their lives, people
are foregoing McMansions for spaces not much big-
ger than a New York City studio apartment. But that
doesn’t mean they’re giving up on McMansion ame-
nities: These little places can be chock full of granite,
tile and hardwood.
A similar trend is taking place in the distribution
market, especially around e-fulfillment. While the
typical DC featured in Modern Materials Handling
Christopher Lane/Getty Images for Peerless Media

Automation/Retail
is 500,000 square feet or more, retail-

ers and e-tailers are looking at smaller
footprints to get nearer to their custom-
ers. But, like tricked out tiny houses,
that doesn’t mean they’re giving up on
automation. The truth is, regardless of
the size of the space or company, e-com-
merce fulfillment operates at a different
pace than store replenishment. Even a
small, fast-growing e-tailer has to design
processes and systems that meet today’s
customer service level expectations if it’s
going to do its own distribution.
Case in point: Adore Me Services,
the Secaucus, N.J.,-based distribution
arm of Adore Me, a fast-growing e-com-
merce retailer selling women’s lingerie,
sleepwear, swimwear and activewear. In
2017, the then five-year-old startup set
out to build its first distribution center
to control the customer experience. The
result was a 130,000-square-foot facility
across the Hudson River from the com-
pany’s New York headquarters that packs
a lot of order fulfillment automation in a
comparatively small space.
“We wanted to be as close to New
York as possible, but in a footprint we
could afford and with a system that
could support at least three year’s
growth out of the facility,” says Krutin
Shah, director of distribution. “That’s
where automation came into play.”
The solution designed by the system
integrator (Bastian Solutions,
bastiansolutions.com) fits a high-density
robotic storage and order picking system Merchandise is inspected and prepared for storage in receiving (top) and then sent to
(AutoStore), two automated putwalls the AutoStore for replenishment (bottom).
(OPEX Sure Sort) that can handle about

80% of the facility’s SKUs, a conventional 200 fastest-moving SKUs. That area is with the addition of 500 to 800 new
putwall for the remaining 20% of SKUs, directed by pick-to-light and totes coming SKUs a month and fills an average of
and conveyor and sortation into an area from that area are directed to one of the 5,000 to 7,000 orders per day. With some
about 35,000 square feet in size. The automated putwalls, the conventional put- 400 cubby locations each, the automated
rest of the facility is dedicated to receiv- wall or a single line packing area. putwalls can sort up to 2,400 units per
ing, reserve storage, packing and ship- While it may be relatively small, the hour compared to about 300 units per
ping, plus one aisle of flow rack for the system manages about 25,000 SKUs hour in a conventional putwall.

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Automation/Retail
Totes are delivered to a goods-to-person pick station (top). Items are then transported to the automated putwall, which sorts them
into orders (bottom).
The order fulfillment solution was handle our demand and provide the cus- York City, Adore Me was founded about
designed to grow with Adore Me in two tomer experience that was designed by ourseven years ago to take on the likes of
ways; the organization can add shifts and, marketing teams,” Shah says. Victoria’s Secret by a Harvard Business
when that is maxed out, there is room to School MBA student. The company has
add to the automation. More importantly, Growing pains a customer base of more than 11 mil-
the new facility allowed Adore Me to up its Ranked No. 36 on Crain’s 2018 Fast 50 lion women, predominately urban mil-
customer service game. “We’re now able to list of fastest-growing companies in New lennials, with 80% of its traffic coming
from mobile devices. While it began as
an e-tailer, Adore Me has added special
services, like an Elite program that ships
a selection of three to five items each
month to participants based on their
preferences, and opened two retail loca-
tions in 2018 with plans to open more
in 2019. In 2017, the last year for which
sales revenues were available, Adore Me
touched $100 million in revenue.
Like many start-ups, order fulfillment
was initially outsourced to a third-party
logistics (3PL) provider. When the com-
pany outgrew the first 3PL’s capacity, it
went with a larger provider. By the end
of 2016, it had outgrown capacity there
as well. “When we left our first 3PL, we
were occupying two aisles of their facil-
ity,” Shah says. “When we left the second,
we were occupying 10 to 12 aisles. We
had also added to our product line, which
added complexity, and we were shipping
to Canada, Australia and the UK.”
More importantly, he adds, the com-

pany’s vision was expanding. In the
early days of the start-up, the focus was
on acquiring new customers. As the
business matured, the focus shifted to
customer retention through a superior
customer experience. New offerings
and retail stores were on the drawing
board. More emphasis was placed on
packaging and presentation. All of those
tweaks to the business model would
have an impact on distribution opera-
tions. “As our business model evolved,
we needed distribution that was flex-
ible,” says Shah. “We didn’t want to
adapt the business timeline to a distri-
bution timeline.”
Things came to a head on Valentine’s
Day 2017, Adore Me’s peak holiday.
“Some customers who placed orders up In addition to the automated putwall, Adore Me Services also uses conventional
to 10 days before Valentine’s Day didn’t putwalls for order consolidation.
receive them until after Valentine’s Day,”
Shah recalls. Soon after, one of the co- Website. The third was the selection and rack storage. What sold the team
founders suggested to the board that it of an integrator with the best design on that combination? “We looked at a
was time for the company to build its to meet Adore Me’s needs. Part of that number of proposals and did a num-
own distribution center. “The idea was was coming up with a design that could ber of site visits,” Shah says. “In the
that if we control our supply chain, we meet Adore Me’s projected needs for at end, we have a reasonably large num-
can control the customer experience, and least three years in a compact facility: ber of SKUs for a facility of this size,
we can control our own destiny,” Shah Getting close to New York City meant plus we’re adding 500 to 800 SKUs a
says. A month later, the team got the go that a 300,000-square-foot distribution month. We needed dense storage to
ahead to build a new DC and a new dis- center was probably out of the question. manage the large number of SKUs,
tribution team (see box, p. 22). That meant automation was going to be and we needed an efficient way to get
important. The last was to build a distri- at SKUs for our order profile.”
Design from the ground up bution team from scratch. The decision to use an automated
Building a greenfield facility gave the “When we started this, our co-found- putwall was the result of looking at the
Adore Me Services team the chance to ers’ strategy was to design a system that best way to sort after batch picking. “The
design a solution without pre-conceived would allow us to start with one shift, traditional way to do that is with a light-
notions or existing systems. The project, and then expand over time to two or directed putwall,” Shah says. “But, most
which kicked off in June 2017, unfolded three shifts,” Shah recalls. “That would of the packages we handle are small
with four big steps. allow us to grow in this location.” While and the average number of items per
The first was site selection: The facil- automation was going to be expensive order is small.” One of the integrators
ity needed to be near the company’s up front, done right, it would reduce the suggested an automated putwall because
New York City headquarters. That led to cost per order compared to working with the technology was originally designed
the New Jersey location across the Hud- a 3PL. “A system was only short-listed if for mail sortation. The manufacturer’s
son River. The second was the selection it could meet that criteria,” Shah says. analysis was that 80% of Adore Me’s
of a warehouse management system Ultimately, the best design was a product could go through that system,
(WMS) that was right for the opera- combination of the robotic order pick- with just 20% going to a traditional light-
tion and integration with the company ing solution, the automated putwalls directed putwall. The catch: The OPEX

Automation/Retail
system had never been integrated with

an AutoStore system in the past. “Our
system integrator was confident they
could do the integration,” Shah says. It
was a risk, but one they were willing to
take.
The reserve storage area is a
combination of rack and floor storage.
Product that is likely to go soon to the
robotic order picking solution is stored
on the floor because it’s more efficient to
access and ship it from there. Remaining
product is stored in pallet rack. There is
also one area of flow rack for picking the
200 fastest-moving SKUs.
Going live
The project had a very aggressive time-
line. From the kickoff in the early sum-
mer of 2017, Adore Me Services, the
newly created distribution arm, began
manual pick, pack and ship operations Orders are packed for shipment.
in October 2017, but with a limited

number of orders. By February of 2018, a team of just e-commerce order fulfillment, the
In fact, Adore Me continued to work more than 30 associates was in place; AutoStore picking technology is now
with a 3PL until the middle of 2018 to that grew to about 80 over time. Since also being used to build mixed item
provide a seamless customer experience then, some have transitioned from temp cartons for store replenishment. Once
whenever possible. Over the next eight to full-time positions on the floor, while a carton is complete, it’s delivered to
months, the team integrated the WMS others have been trained to maintain a small value-added processing center
with the Website and the warehouse the automation and operate lift trucks. where store tickets and RFID tags are
control system and began to build a The automation went live in March added to get items store ready. And
team of associates. “The original team of 2018, roughly eight months after the although returns are negligible now,
was me, our co-founder, an ex-Amazon kickoff. Before the summer was out, the Adore Me’s subscription service is
manager and other members of our sup- 3PL had been phased out. “We could not growing in popularity, which will increase
ply chain team,” Shah recalls. “Then, have been in a better spot,” Shah says. the number of returns that have to be
we brought on a software systems “We had our smoothest holiday season in processed in the future. To that end,
expert, an HR manager, finance and three years and the fact that we did this Shah and his team are investigating ways
inventory manager and an individual to all in a very short period of time gave us to use the automation to handle returns.
manage safety and loss prevention.” a boost in confidence.” “When we were with a 3PL, we
With key people in place, Adore Me The full system, including the didn’t always understand how difficult
Services began working with several automation, has been up and running for it can be to change the distribution
temp agencies to add associates into nearly a year as of this story. “We’re still process when we changed the
the mix a handful at a time. “We were learning today,” says Shah. In addition business model. For a company with
investing in people who would stay with to delivering on Adore Me’s customer an evolving business model, we now
us and had the potential to be trained experience, flexibility is an important have a very flexible distribution system
for the next level when we brought in benefit of the system. For example, that we can use to our advantage in
the automation,” Shah says. while the solution was designed for the market.” •

Pouch and pocket sorters
shake up e-commerce
distribution
With e-fulfillment driving the need for high-rate order consolidation,
pouch/pocket sortation systems address a number
of top e-commerce challenges.

Automation/Retail
Caption
D istribution technologies that were ini-

tially built to support retail brick-and-
mortar locations have done an admi-
rable job adapting to the e-commerce
revolution. Direct-to-consumer (D2C) fulfillment has
pushed technology to the limit as end users work to
squeeze every penny, second and square inch from
Solutions that store, transport, sort, sequence and
consolidate eaches are in demand. “A pouch system
can accommodate all of those. The pouch system
is now the centerpiece and fulfillment engine for
e-commerce distribution centers,” Ruehrdanz says.
If you’ve never heard of pouch or pocket sortation
systems, don’t worry. Ross Halket, vice president of
their facilities. It might come as a surprise, then, that intralogistics sales for WRH Global Americas, says
a 50-year-old technology designed for a very specific there aren’t many pouch systems in North America yet.
niche could be just what the industry needs. “There are fewer than a dozen that I know of, but
The volume and complexity of e-commerce order a lot of customers are at the point now where they
fulfillment has created the need for solutions that were with shuttles a few years ago,” Halket says.
streamline piece picking, says Ken Ruehrdanz, man- “They’re keeping it close to the chest because they
ager of the distribution systems market for Dematic. don’t want competitors to know.”
Pouches make efficient use of overhead space and can be easily routed through a facility’s
nooks and crannies. Well-suited to direct-to-consumer fulfillment and returns, pouches
and pockets reduce touches while increasing responsiveness.

Consolidate in advance picked throughout the building must “after sort” systems like put walls.
Pouch sortation started in the garment come together for an order. “Add 20 locations after sort and you
industry. The simple rail systems densely “In retail you have 50 to 100 items go from 100 destinations to 2,000, but
stored and singulated premium clothing coming together, then with direct-to- that’s a lot of touching going on,” Simp-
on hangers, but they also proved effec- consumer it’s two or three,” Simpson son says. “A touch to pick, to induct, to
tive for sorting items into vehicles in says. “Regardless of order size, consoli- post-sort, to pack out, just to get an order
route sequence. The specialized technol- dation became harder and harder in our consolidated.”
ogy lingered quietly for decades, serving industry. You see many sorting solutions Halket says high-velocity systems typi-
primarily the fashion industry. Mean- trying to solve for that, like unit sorters, cally have four touches before packout,
while, the retail industry churned ever tilt tray, bomb bay and sliding shoe. For and pouch systems cut that in half. The
closer to omni-channel and D2C capa- all of them, the end goal was to take pouch becomes the put wall right from
bilities by innovating with conventional all inventory picked in the warehouse the pick face, he says, saving at least two
distribution technologies. and consolidate it into a single order or touches per unit. As an added bonus, any
According to Dave Simpson, execu- group of orders.” single-item orders, whether 1% or 15%
tive director of ASD sales for SSI However, these conventional sorta- of orders, can bypass the entire sort pro-
Schaefer Systems International, even tion technologies couldn’t quite do the cess and take a straight rail to packout,
some of the most advanced warehouse job by themselves. Users might add Halket says.
automation has a breaking point. induction points to try to increase per- Each touch adds an opportunity
Demand for higher singulation and formance, Simpson says, but there’s still for error. Carousels and put walls that
consolidation has only grown, with the need to bring items to the induction achieve more than 99.7% accuracy were
warehouses evolving from thousands to area. On the back end, limited desti- good enough for retail, says Rudi Lueg,
hundreds of thousands of SKUs. Items nations led to widespread adoption of senior vice president of sales for Knapp.
Acting as a dynamic wave buffer, pocket sortation systems allow for massive batches and waves, pre-allocating and efficient
order consolidation.

Automation/Retail
One customer with several pouch mod- rate. Ruehrdanz says pouch systems use generally, is they are limited in size,”
ules, on the other hand, pushed out 500 overhead space effectively, storing and Simpson says. “Think about picking for
million items in a day and tallied three buffering in tight, compact rows. The rail a crossbelt sorter. Wave size can be no
errors. That’s a 0.0000006% error rate. system offers cost-effective accumulation larger than the number of open orders,
“For direct-to-consumer, pockets are of lots of inventory. Typical systems range so you have to throttle the size of waves.”
one of the few technologies that are from 25,000 to 150,000 pouches, Rueh- Lueg adds that in a conventional wave
really suitable,” Lueg says. “If inside the rdanz says, and typical throughput ranges of 2,000 items, if you miss five items the
four walls you try to cut costs and throw from 2,500 to 12,000 items per hour. whole wave is stuck. “IT guys love waves,
bodies at problems, forget about it. One Pick modules and goods-to-person operations hates waves,” he says. Pouch
of our pouch customers is done on Black stations are a good complement to pouch sortation works as waveless in a wave
Friday at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., while another sortation. The operator—or conveyor or environment, so everyone is happy.
facility could be digging out of Black Fri- cobot—can pick for hundreds of orders However, if a pouch system has a
day for another week.” at a time. Each pouch only ever holds three-hour wave capacity, Halket says,
one item, which won’t be touched again “give it all to me. Don’t parse and ana-
A buffer above until packout. Simpson says large sys- lyze, just give it all and within those
The benefits of pouch and pocket systems support huge batch picking. pouches I now have three hours of work
tems center around space, capacity and “The problem with batches or waves, hanging above me.”
Pouches become put walls directly from the pick face, which might be staffed by a human, conveyor or cobot.

Pouches achieve this performance “Use this dynamic wave buffer with a “99.99% accuracy is a traditional tar-
by functioning as a buffer at a scale and select number of SKUs you’re confident get,” Nathan adds, “but in e-commerce
efficiency few other sortation systems will sell, and as orders come in those at 20,000 items an hour that’s 20 prob-
can match. The physical infrastructure units will be immediately allocated,” lems to solve every hour, which takes an
for pouch systems is very accommodat- Simpson says. “This is different from a inordinate amount of time.”
ing, according to Simpson. He says mul- replenishment model where there are Similarly, if one customer orders
tiple levels can be routed around nooks min/max thresholds and you have paid something and then 30 minutes later
and crannies in the warehouse with no someone to go get a case, open it and orders something else, you have two
physical floor space taken, and because make it available for one or two picks.” orders. Once the first order is released,
pouches conform to their contents there Dynamic wave buffers are great not it’s too late to modify it. Pouches can
is virtually zero wasted space. Compare just for residuals and pre-picking, Simp- hold and combine the two orders before
this to the use of a tilt tray carrying a son says, but for returns. Anything des- releasing them to the packer.
thumb drive. ignated as return to stock goes into the Nathan says pouches further boost
One big shuttle or other stor- buffer to fill the next order right away. accuracy because their identification,
age engine can support pick stations Krish Nathan, CEO of SDI Sys- whether RFID or bar code, is in the
where a person or cobot loads a pouch, tems, says one pouch customer used same place every time. Once product
Halket says. Using gravity as much as 50% of returns within 24 hours. Their is married to the pouch, scanners and
possible cuts the need for hundreds of system has hundreds of thousands low-price cameras can be distributed
drives in the air, he adds. This reduces of pouches, with a buffer of between through the system.
the already low maintenance pouches 60,000 to 100,000. A business with “You can guarantee 100% accuracy
require as an easy-to-clean technology 40,000 SKUs and a buffer of that because just before it’s diverted to a
with fewer components. size might pre-load two of each SKU, pack station it’s scanned one more
“One client used $600 in parts in Nathan says, simply because they time,” Lueg says. “If something is wrong,
two years,” Halket says. “These are very know they will need them eventually. it’s flagged right there. It’s essentially
simple systems compared to the servos As opposed to a shuttle’s tote- or car- automated quality assurance for every
and switches and elements in traditional ton-level storage and retrieval, Nathan pack station.”
sorters and conveyors.” says a pouch system’s dynamic buffer is Halket highlights pouches’ promise
a unit-level storage and retrieval engine. in the third-party logistics space, where
Dynamic waves “Pouches are a super exciting tech- a pouch system lends itself to whatever
A pouch system’s dynamic wave buffer nology that now actively tracks every- contracts might come. From cell phones
enables a high degree of efficiency and thing at the unit level,” Nathan says. to teddy bears to frying pans, Halket
preparedness. Lueg offers the example of “Because you know where everything is, says it can be done with a combination
an upcoming sale on red T-shirts. You’re you know what you don’t have. A chal- of pouch sorter and shuttle.
fairly confident you will sell 10,000, but lenge in most e-commerce operations is “These are no-brainers in my mind,”
certain you will sell at least 5,000. It’s the tail, the things you didn’t pick and he says. “People should not only be
possible to pre-load the pockets with the any exceptions. This technology gives looking at pouches, but getting in line to
5,000 and if you sell 8,000 when busy you loads of flexibility to handle excep- purchase them. The big ones who have
you only need to load 3,000 more. tions because you know what they are.” done their pilots are now greenfielding,
Suppose promotional efforts create For example, in a traditional tilt tray and retrofits are easy because they can
100 high-speed SKUs, Simpson says. and put wall environment, packout finds go above anything. The technology is
You can pick each discrete order as it exceptions. If a picker gets the wrong coming from both angles.”
comes in or do waves in full case incre- size shoe, Nathan says, someone now Traditional brick-and-mortar retail
ments. Say 20 units are in a case and has to put the wrong size away and do a technology in a D2C environment
the wave needs six. Induct all 20, and hot pick to get the right one. The result impacts productivity, accuracy and flow,
the six are allocated while 14 go into a is that 80% of fulfillment time is spent Lueg says. “All those things are beauti-
holding pattern. dealing with 20% of the orders. fully solved with pouches.” •

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THE STATE OF

Materials Handling Automation/Retail

A comprehensive look at the innovative

Adore Me Services: Small space, big automation 45

Editorial Staff Peerless Media, LLC

2 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

REAL- TIME ASSET HEALTH MONITORING

RESOURCE RETENTION STRATEGIES

E-Commerce pressures continue to create unprecedented

For more information,

4 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

house execution system (WES) for

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 5

Orders are filled in a four-level pick

But innovation isn’t just an e-ful-

6 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

ning to transform the 500,000-square-foot

8 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

The Gallatin facility includes a number of

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 9

BY ROBERTO MICHEL, EDITOR AT LARGE

10 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 11

12 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

Real-time location solutions could help WMS

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 13

14 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

Rubik’s Cube® is used by permission of Rubik’s Brand Ltd. www.rubiks.com.

Superior results for e-commerce, retail,

30% improvement in efficiency.

SIMPLE. Flexible, scalable and easy to use.

Maximizing Resource Utilization

n a nearly 1.5-million-square-foot space One of Canada’s largest retail brands took

16 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 17

productivity in the business while also

18 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

Building sustainably at Canadian Tire

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 19

CUBING & WEIGHING:

G o back 30 years and dimensioning equipment was a somewhat unproven if

20 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 21

and feeding the data into a warehouse management system

22 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 23

New types of “edge” technologies promise new options for

T he newest thing in data capture isn’t so much a device

24 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 25

22.5% compound annual growth.

26 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

mmh.com The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail 27

Handheld devices for data capture

another—that might be useful to a

28 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

JOEY POUCH SORTER IS AN ULTRA-FLEXIBLE SYSTEM

SORT, ACCUMULATE , AND BUFFER ITEMS IN THE DC. THIS

30 The State of Materials Handling Automation/Retail mmh.com

Chris Cone / Getty Images for Peerless Media