E-commerce business is becoming more and more popular, especially after the covid-19 pandemic. In order to meet the increasing demand of e-commerce, e-commerce industry and logistics companies turn to automation.
There is a common development between e-commerce enterprises and logistics industry, which is also a common feature.
Automation is not new to the logistics industry. Even during the industrial revolution, the use of steam engines could be called automation to a large extent.
However, with the progress of technology, a new form of automation appears in the form of robot picker and packaging machine.
In addition, automation is being adopted in different areas of the logistics industry. One automation is warehousing automation, which has great potential, especially for logistics companies such as VRL and DTDC.
In addition to the logistics industry, warehouse automation is also highly adopted by transportation companies.
How does warehouse automation work?
Warehouse automation through the use of software and technology, including but not limited to sensors and robotics for automated tasks.
Warehouse automation can be realized by using software such as inventory management software and warehouse management software.
Warehouse management system is particularly important because its purpose is to automate manual processes and data acquisition to control inventory and support different kinds of data analysis terms. Everything together to improve the efficiency of supply chain functions.
The different categories of warehouse automation are basic warehouse automation, warehouse system automation, mechanized warehouse automation and advanced warehouse automation. As the name itself implies, each of these automations is an advanced version of the previous category, respectively.
How does warehouse automation create greater opportunities for the logistics industry?
Warehouse automation solves many problems, but also creates opportunities for the logistics department to improve its efficiency. Warehouse automation brings opportunities to the logistics department in the following aspects.
Firstly, the realization of goods to individuals is one of the most popular applications of automation, in which vertical lifting system and conveyor are used to improve the efficiency of warehouse picking. With the effective application of transferring goods to individuals, any company can easily double the speed of warehouse picking.
Secondly, the most common applications of warehouse automation include automatic guided vehicles running in the warehouse. These vehicles are designed to work in the warehouse with the help of sensors, strips or wires.
They must move through a fixed path in the warehouse. These AGVs help reduce manual movement. However, the real benefits of AGVs can only be used in large warehouses rather than small warehouses.
Finally, robots can become part of warehouse automation to ensure the safety of workers. Warehouse operations often involve risk activities. Such risk activities may include handling heavy objects and handling toxic products and high traffic environments.
Robots in warehouse automation can be used to deal with heavy products and toxic environments. This reduces the risk to employees.
Autonomous mobile robot also plays an important role in warehouse automation. In most cases, autonomous mobile robots are more flexible than automatic guided vehicles. These autonomous mobile robots are designed with advanced laser guidance system.
Their main job is to remove obstacles in the warehouse with busy working environment, because there is a large flow of people there. Their job is to create a safer working environment in a dynamic ecosystem.
At the same time, warehouse automation also reduces the degree of errors. For example, a wired robot can function as a barcode reader. Compared with the manual reading of bar code, the robot bar code reader has fewer errors.
Most warehouse automation elements ensure fewer errors. Fewer errors create an inventory with lower losses and waste. Most inventory fulfillment problems are caused by human errors in manual process management. Warehouse automation highly eliminates the risk of such errors.
Although warehouse automation has solved many problems and created a lot of opportunities, warehouse automation is not an easy task. Warehouse automation requires proper planning.
However, it is worthwhile to invest in warehouse automation, because it creates better resource utilization, reduces operation and labor costs, optimizes warehouse space, improves warehouse environment and reduces inventory loss.
