DC Automation Gets Real

While rack-crawling robots and remote forklift operations grab headlines, a vast swath of distribution centers operate with little to no automation at all. These operations rely on manual labor and outdated systems to keep up the pace in an increasingly complex and demanding operating environment.

Industry experts estimate that about 80% of warehouses have no automation, 15% have some automation, and 5% have implemented advanced solutions.

A study from nShift reveals that about one-third of logistics workers spend more than 50% of their time on manual tasks. These distribution centers (DCs) and warehouses miss out on the benefits of automation as they face rising labor costs and struggle to manage growing volumes and the complexity of the ecommerce boom.

Automation solutions can help improve efficiency, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

But what is automation? How is it defined?

In the distribution world, a broad spectrum of technologies are tagged as “automation.” The fully automated, lights-out operations are at the high end of the scale. On the other hand are the less complex, more affordable solutions that deliver improvements without complicated technology and operations integrations.

These machines, such as portable ergonomic conveyors and parcel sorting solutions, are force multipliers that allow one employee to perform the work of many people.

“These systems are a kind of semi-automation, a bridge to full automation in the future,” says Brendan D’Anna, business development manager of warehouse solutions with Gorbel®. “It’s something achievable right now with a real return on investment.”

With the promise of full automation seemingly always a few years away, many DC operators are reluctant to make what they think will be interim investments in less complex solutions.

“Products like the Gorbel Destuff-it™ portable ergonomic conveyor allow companies to bank on several years of productivity gains in the meantime,” says Anton Sawatzky, sales manager for warehouse solutions. “We’re seeing many companies realize they want solutions to help them perform better now, rather than waiting.”

Nimble automation solutions allow DCs to adapt to packaging changes, such as the boom in polybags for parcel shipping, notes Brent Gregory, director of business development and marketing for Engineering Innovation Inc.

“Packaging used to be all boxes, and now it’s 50-50 boxes and polybags. Who knows how it will be in five years?” he says. “So, it’s always changing, and you have to be adaptive and innovative as a company.”

To keep pace with volume growth, labor shortages, and market shifts, distribution centers of all types can deploy cost-effective, easy-to-integrate solutions to meet immediate needs. At the same time, more sophisticated technology continues to develop for widespread adoption.

Gorbel®: Driving Dock Door Productivity

Many truck trailers and most ocean containers are floor-loaded instead of stacking goods on pallets. While this makes it easier to utilize the trailer’s total cubic volume, there are some pitfalls.

For example, there are few warehouse events worse than a dock worker opening the trailer doors and boxes tumbling out in a pile. That means the integrity of the box wall in a floor-loaded trailer has been compromised.

The cardboard boxes can be damaged by condensation, crushing, and other impacts that weaken the boxes. Even the boxes that stay in the trailer can be hard to handle without damaging the packaging or the contents.

The proliferation of polybags, while cube- and weight-efficient, makes it hard to build a sturdy box wall.

Today’s automated systems still struggle with handling odd shapes and less-than-perfect boxes. “Some of the boxes are in horrible shape so you can’t grip them,” says Charles Blizard, regional sales representative with Gorbel. “Robotics don’t work well when there’s not a uniform size of boxes in the load.”

In a typical warehouse, teams of two to three people manually unload floor-loaded trailers across 10 dock doors. They spend hours working each trailer, hoisting boxes on carts or conveyors that feed into the DC’s downstream sortation system or an auto palletizer.

As the volume and variety of inbound loads increase, DC operators realize there has to be a better way.

The Gorbel Destuff-it and its complementary machine, the Restuff-it™, dramatically improve labor and warehouse space utilization. The Destuff-it is a one-way conveyor designed to unload trailers with an employee platform and conveyor at the box wall. The Restuff-it is bi-directional and equipped for loading and unloading operations.

With the Destuff-it, two teams of six workers can replace 10 teams of two workers, for example.

“You end up with a headcount bonus you can distribute somewhere else in the building,” Sawatzky says.

Enhancing Employee Management & Safety

According to OSHA, 25% of all reported warehouse injuries are attributed to loading docks. Workers grapple with heavy boxes and may be struck by falling boxes. As they become fatigued, workers may take shortcuts like reaching too far, knocking the box wall over, and picking up boxes off the floor.

Automation not only improves productivity but also improves employee safety. Fewer employees work each dock, and they don’t have to engage in lifting, twisting, and turning, which reduces exposure to potential injuries.

When he worked at a leading ecommerce company as a safety program manager, D’Anna saw firsthand the benefits of the Destuff-it ergonomic conveyor in a pilot program.

“We completely eliminated all serious injuries and reduced injuries that required first aid—like bumps and bruises—by 87% while seeing a 21% productivity boost,” he says.

Reducing the physical strain on employees can help reduce turnover as well.

“It’s hard enough to retain people, but if you give them something they want to work with, it helps,” says Blizard. “They’re not as exhausted when they go home and have more energy for their family life.”

Multifaceted ROI

In addition to employee productivity gains, automation can change the equation of operational velocity and space utilization in a distribution center.

Several Destuff-it users have been able to reduce the number of dock doors due to the increased speed of unloading trailers. A warehouse with 40 doors could be downsized to 10 doors, with 10 teams instead of 40.

They can reallocate those doors and floor space to other uses, such as adding more racks or other machines.

Faster turn times help reduce carrier waiting times and trailer backlogs. With a portable ergonomic conveyor, a dock door may handle four trucks per shift instead of one.

“The ability to keep trucks cycling through doors and keep the product flowing through the building is critical,” D’Anna says.

Because the Destuff-it system is portable, it can serve several dock doors, compared to a stationary machine that occupies a door, whether it’s used or not.

“With the correct power distribution system, you can service a dozen doors with a single Destuff-it at a DC,” Sawatzky says.

Engineering Innovation Inc.: First Steps to Automation

Given the technological and financial hurdles to implementing fully robotic DCs, many companies understandably look for interim steps between manual and automated operations.

Engineering Innovation Inc. (EII) offers low-tech yet effective solutions for presort mailing and parcel applications that dramatically improve DC performance without a lengthy and costly onboarding process. DC operators can get a taste of the benefits of automation, and cost savings can help fund future investments.

“When someone is going from manual processes and taking their first steps into automation, that’s our niche,” Gregory says. “We’re helping them get started in their first few years in automation, and then they’ll be ready to take the next steps.”

The level of automation may vary by location within the same company.

“We have seen a company with an East Coast warehouse with full automation; in the middle of the country they have some level of technology, and in their West Coast operation they have zero automation,” Gregory says.

EII helps companies target the worst bottlenecks in the operation, such as manually receiving packages into the building and sorting parcels for shipment. The solutions were developed to solve specific problem areas with automation to improve warehouse efficiency.

The Chameleon® parcel-processing solution provides modular parcel automation suitable for any space. This parcel-processing solution is fully adaptable to changing environments with a modular design that offers customizable options, including sorting, dimensioning, labeling, barcode reading, OCR reading, and RFID capabilities.

The conveyor-based Chameleon offers scanning, weights and dimensions, labeling and sorting functions.

“This machine currently runs about 4,000 pieces per hour, and we’re working on some new sorting technology to allow us to get up into the 6,000 to 8,000 range,” Gregory says.

The LightSort® pick-to-light systems streamline sorting, making it easy for temporary workers to operate at full speed and improving sort accuracy. The LightSort operator wears a ring scanner that scans the package, and a light illuminates for the correct sorting location on the rack, mailbag, or Gaylord-sized box.

“Experienced operators can sort about 500 pieces per hour,” Gregory says.

Affordable and Flexible

A growing parcel operation can take advantage of an affordable automation solution that can shift or change according to volume or market requirements.

The EII parcel handling and sorting solutions are not disruptive to overall operations, so the rest of the warehouse doesn’t have to miss a step. Customers can integrate them into existing systems with their own IT teams, or EII can provide technical support.

The machines are modular and easily connected to provide a finer level of sorting by destination to reduce shipping costs.

“A DC may have our Chameleon machine that sorts to six destinations, and each of those six destinations has a LightSort system for an even finer sort,” Gregory says. “The top-level sort destination may be California, and then they can sort to Sacramento, San Diego, and San Francisco, for example.”

Typically, DC operators turn to EII solutions to help overcome labor issues. They may use temporary labor, and training and language barriers present daily challenges. Or they may be enjoying increased volumes that exceed their current capabilities. The EII machines use far fewer people daily than manual operations.

The shift toward ecommerce applies additional pressure on the labor situation. Online retail typically requires more labor per item sold than traditional brick-and-mortar sales. Each item must be picked and packed individually rather than be delivered to stores in bulk. Without automation, it takes more labor to generate the same revenue, putting pressure on already stressed margins.

Gregory recalls one DC operator that had used 24 people each day for a small sorting operation. The EII solution required only four people to keep the machine operating.

“We were saving them 20 people every day, so if you translate it into the ROI argument, the machine pays for itself very quickly,” he says.

Many DCs aren’t in a position for a complete makeover, but these facilities could benefit from higher velocity operations with automation at a level that makes sense for their operation and budget.

Warehouse operators can overcome staffing issues by doing more with fewer resources. At the same time, automation can move high volumes efficiently with far fewer mistakes that are common with manual operations. Automation can move warehouse operations from chaos to efficiency.

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Automation Supports Ecommerce Expansion

Gorbel® helped a last-mile delivery business overcome the problem of loose floor-loaded products from an online retailer. Their customer was sending a mix of boxes and polybags, and manual unloading required too much labor and time.

“For ecommerce, the loading of the trucks and how it gets delivered is completely different,” Sawatzky says. “Every layer of the box wall could be different in the trailer, and you don’t know what it looks like until you start unpacking it.”

After a long search, the company installed a Destuff-it™ to manage the loose loads. The conveyor minimized the risk of injury, and employees recognized the value of the machine relative to their workload.

Because the Destuff-it is easy to operate, there’s no language barrier to train employees to use the machine.

Before the machine was installed, it took three employees about two and a half hours to unload a truck of unpalletized products. With the machine, two employees manage the work in 90 minutes. The Destuff-it paid for itself within six months, and the company ordered another one.

Now that the facility has the right machinery in place, the retail customer can increase its loose load volume, improving its efficiency.

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