Fulfillment Automation: Essential Insights from Dr. Jack Peck

Given today’s labor environment, every fulfillment operation needs to be moving toward automation.

There’s great technology out there for your fulfillment automation needs, but it’s important to pick the correct strategy and implement it effectively to ensure automation investments don’t go awry.

A recent interview on the Unboxing Fulfillment podcast with Dr. Jack Peck, President and CEO at FastFetch Corporation, highlights important points for online retailers who are considering automation in their own operation or in their 3PL providers’ operations.

Read the highlights below.

Voice Picking

Voice picking is one of the most widely used warehouse picking systems. There’s a reason: properly deployed, voice picking can enable fulfillment operators to increase throughput and accuracy. It can also make training and operations easier.

This is definitely the case with Staci Americas' voice picking program, which led to a 40% to 50% increase in productivity with nearly 100% accuracy. And it enables the company to train-up new pickers in less than five minutes.

Peck cautions that voice picking systems aren’t right for every environment or application. For example, he points out that warehouses with a lot of ambient noise from forklifts and conveyors can experience problems with voice non-recognition and misrecognition.

To prevent this problem, Staci Americas has separate aisles for pick lines that are located far away from forklifts and high-traffic areas.

Voice picking delivers fantastic efficiencies in numerous applications. But is it right for every pick line? Not always. Automation is a long-term strategy and you want to make sure the technology is the right solution for your operation and order volume.

Pick to Light

Peck considers pick to light (PTL) a top strategy for fulfillment automation in the right circumstances.

At Staci Americas, we agree. We use PTL in several facilities where we’ve seen a 40% improvement in efficiency and payback in under 12 months.

The trick is to ensure the labor savings offset the cost. Automation is always an investment. PTL is no different. Lights can cost anywhere from $200 to $400, and every SKU an eRetailer stocks needs a light. For sellers with an enormous number of SKUs, PTL may not be a cost-effective option.

An example of this would be a clothing eRetailer with an extensive line of products that are available in every color under the sun. They would require a lot of lights – as well as floor space and maintenance.

To reduce potential maintenance needs, Peck recommends replacing the buttons associates push to register a pick with motion sensors. Buttons can fail and delay picking operations. With motion sensors, associates just wave in front of the sensor to confirm an order.

Automatic Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RSs)

AS/RSs are rapidly gaining in popularity, but there are instances where they are not the best choice for 3PLs’ and eRetailers’ needs. “Carousels are great if you're short on floor space,” Peck says. “But they’re not always the fastest way to automate picking,” he adds.

Some fulfillment operations juice the speed by using multiple carousels, which adds cost and takes up more space. This highlights how all automation investment is a balancing act of performance and desired return.

A-frames – another type of AS/RS – are an example of how success of the automation method can vary by product type. Peck describes them as pup tents as long as 50 yards long with a conveyor down the middle that is segmented into subdivisions that hold orders. As the subdivisions travel down the conveyor, products are dispensed. He says the system can pick orders very quickly, but it only works with small products.

Robots

Robots are the wave of the future. According to Gartner, 95% of supply chain organizations say they have invested, or plan to invest, in cyber-physical automation, and a significant percentage of these plan to use smart robots. It makes sense given today’s labor constraints.

Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are a mainstay at Staci Americas where these collaborative robots (cobots) are enabling double or triple the order volumes and near-perfect accuracy – all without increasing labor or space.

One category of robots that is still being perfected is the picking function. Dexterity is needed, especially when it comes to things like kitting. “Kitting is a particular challenge because not only does a robot pick it, they have to put it into a box and position it in a way that packs nicely and doesn’t waste space,” Peck observes. “The arrangement, vision, dexterity and all of those other things that people can do, we're still not there with robots.”

Nevertheless, the things cobots are good at, they’re really good at.

Warehouse associates can walk more than nine miles in a shift, according to Forbes. This travel eats up productive time and increases the physical strain of the job for today’s hard-to-retain warehouse workers. Cobots at Staci Americas eliminate most of these miles so associates can focus on more value-adding activities.

Make the Right Choice

There are lots of automation alternatives for companies that need to increase throughput while controlling labor costs. Don’t rush the process because you’ll suffer the downside of the wrong choice for years.

The other option, of course, is to find a fulfillment partner that can run your operation with the right combination of low-level and advanced automation. Talk to the team at Staci Americas about how to lower your fulfillment costs through smarter automation.