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How Automation is Tackling One of the Toughest Distribution Center (DC) Jobs
By Eric Harty, VP Robotic Solutions Offering, Honeywell Robotics
The number and variety of products available to e-commerce consumers have expanded dramatically. With this change comes an increasing number of goods received by retailers and e-commerce operations in an ever-expanding variety of pallet load patterns. Even when a company receives multiple pallets of the same SKU, stacking patterns can vary from pallet to pallet. The processes of breaking down these pallets and placing their contents into storage or a warehouse automation system are common operational bottlenecks.
Until recently, depalletizing has been particularly challenging for warehouse robots to handle. While humans can easily deal with unstructured and ever-changing tasks like unloading a random assortment of items, robotic programming has taken a while to catch up. However, traditional challenges can now be overcome, thanks to major improvements in three key technologies:
- Advances in vision and perception
- Development of sophisticated machine learning
- Innovation in gripping technology
Together, these breakthroughs have enabled the development of a smart flexible depalletizer: a fully automated solution capable of meeting or exceeding the throughput of manual operations. Download the white paper, which highlights the significant benefits smart flexible depalletizers have to offer modern distribution centers (DCs) and other fulfillment operations, and explore the increasingly attractive business case for implementing these solutions.
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