2007-01-16 Build to Order Palletizing in Real Time : Robots can improve shipping efficiency (By Kevin Kozuszek, Kuka Robotics Corp)

Since the beginning of retail there has been a struggle between the manufacturers who produce product and the retailers who sell them. Manufacturers want to produce product in the most efficient quantity possible to take advantage of economies of scale without creating costly inventory.

Usually by utilizing dedicated material handling and logistical systems and equipment based on high speed, single SKU production. Retailers also want to keep inventory costs low by ordering only enough products to stock their shelves. This means to reduce cost and become more competitive, retailers need to order smaller quantities of a variety of products rather than full pallets of a single product.

Manufacturers have been adapting to the retailers need for built to order pallets by using manual labor. However, manual labor is inefficient. Labor costs and retention rates are high and accuracy is inconsistent.

Manufacturers have used some automation in intermediate attempts to adapt to the retailers need for build to order pallets by developing mixed layered palletizing where by they can produce pallets with different "layers" of products. Though closer to the retailers demand this solutions this does not address the retailer's real requirement for true custom order fulfillment with multiple products on a single pallet.

A better solution would be an automated software/hardware system that could produce a customized mixed pallet of product. A system that would utilize the existing information in the manufacturer's database(warehouse management system or WMS) to formulate a series of actions that would be sent to the hardware (robots, linear slides, etc.) to fulfill the order. In effect, manufacturers need a real time connection between their information (WMS database) and execution (palletizing hardware) that will result in efficiently built to order mixed pallets.

Currently manufacturing distribution centers (DCs) lack the material handling and logistical to fulfill these mixed product orders. Typically the DC has a WMS database that holds all the incoming order and inventory information and a variety of hardware solutions to fulfill simple orders but lack the software that can translate the data into actions to create the customer order.

The WMS is the information center of the warehouse that holds inventory numbers, product information, customer orders and also controls material flow. Effectively it is a large database and the receptacle of all the inventory information but lacks the intelligence to utilize this information to produce action plans for the hardware.

The hardware historically used in these distribution centers range from Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), carousels, conveyors, palletizers and people. The drawback to these hardware options is that they have been designed for speed and palletizing of one product. To introduce flexible order fulfillment, manufacturers and distributors are now introducing vision systems, robots and/or linear slides to accommodate the mixed pallet orders.

With a manufacturers' WMS system in place and the use of vision systems, robots and/or linear slides the manufacturer only needs one more link to connect its information to its hardware. A link or protocolthat will process the information in the WMS and translate it into efficient actions for the hardware to act on.