By Dan Park, Sales Engineering Manager for Australia and New Zealand, Zebra Technologies
Since the pandemic began, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) have become increasingly popular in manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution environments, particularly as they have allowed for social distancing. Their ability to transport everything from raw materials to parts to picked and returned items have helped increase worker efficiency and productivity, and eliminated face-to-face item handoffs between workers. It is no surprise then that AMRs are now considered one of the best ways to close the labour gap.
As pointed out by Zebra’s Vice President for Robotics Automation, Melonee Wise, there are many perks that AMRs can offer businesses.
How Minimising Human Movement Helps Efficiency
Though social distancing felt limiting at first, it ultimately proved that people do not need to work in close proximity to one another to keep production, fulfillment or even reverse logistics processes running smoothly. AMRs allow workers to stay in a single zone and produce, pick, pack or put away more items than ever before. People can stay focused on the task at hand while the robots can manage the mundane parts of the workflow, such as running raw materials, finished goods, and empty cardboard boxes from one station to the next, ensuring they get to the right place at the right time.
In fact, some businesses have seen productivity rise to 70% higher within days of augmenting their workforce with AMRs. For one customer, that translated to a 25% increase in throughput.
Tightening the Supply Chain Process
Supply chain operations have often been described as “controlled chaos” as it can be difficult to keep track of every activity. The same is true when you drill down to any single facet of the supply chain, such as a factory or distribution centre’s operations.
Much like a marching band, each member is playing a different role or instrument, but they are doing so in a well-orchestrated manner that allows them to give a stellar performance. But if one person missteps or forgets a note, the whole routine could fall apart. Sure, they may be able to recover and keep going, but at what cost?
In supply chain operations, one wrong move or mis-pick could have serious financial or safety-oriented consequences. That is why it is so critical to ensure everyone can successfully and safely move in unison, even when they are technically moving in different directions throughout a facility. With AMRs, you can set up safe travel lanes, schedule coordinated meetups with human counterparts, and minimize the amount of physical movement required to get through task lists.
Decreasing the Cost of Labour
While Australia’s manufacturing sector continues to expand, it is also being hampered by labour shortage, with 22,300 job vacancies reported in August of 2021, compared with 7,000 in February 2020[1].
But what if we could offset labour shortage simply by investing more in AMRs?
According to the Australian Chamber-Westpac Survey of Industrial Trends, 23% of manufacturing respondents intend to increase equipment investment spending in the next year[2]. By utilising mobile robots, we can maintain operational continuity even when facilities are only staffed at 50%. Additionally, this provides the opportunity to employ people who may not have been able to work in labour-intensive roles in the past.
Another major benefit of AMRs is its ability to save on ‘manual travel’, with one major logistics company saying it saved its team nearly over 30,000 km in manual travel each day by employing AMRs in a single distribution centre.
Additionally, a non-profit organization offering skill-based training and warehousing services has been able to empower hundreds of visually impaired workers to work independently simply by deploying AMRs to move empty carts and assist with case picking. Just think how many more workers could be employed by manufacturers, warehouse, and distribution centre operators with AMRs on standby to help guide or complete certain tasks. People of all abilities would be able to join the team and make an immediate impact.
Though automation may be considered ubiquitous in manufacturing, warehouse operations are ripe for automation and, specifically, mobile robots, with factors like the labour shortage driving record demand for AMRs.
Within hours of arrival, AMRs can be fully operational and productive, and workers can become exponentially more valuable and productive, regardless of their past job experience or current skillset. Workers with all abilities can get more done each day without feeling burned out while businesses can scale operations to better manage velocity and throughput as market dynamics dictate.
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2 https://www.australianchamber.com.au/news/labour-shortages-to-hit-manufacturing/