SPECIAL DIGITAL ISSUE

Automation:
A new day for warehouse
and DC operations
AUTOMATION:

A NEW DAY FOR WAREHOUSE/ welcome

DC OPERATIONS Meeting the
pressures of
the new world
contents Businesses have
Innovation and automation at DHL Supply Chain 4 never been under
more pressure to
keep their custom-
Software Survey: Users cautiously embrace change 12 ers satisfied. They’re
still contending
with the aftershocks
How WES is changing the game for fulfillment centers 18 of the pandemic,
ongoing labor and supply shortages,
and a never-ending string of disrup-
Autonomous Lift Trucks: The human equation 24 tions. Those, however, are time limited
and will pass. Other changes, like the
Real benefits with simulation 30 exponential increase in e-commerce
sales and direct-to-consumer deliveries,
are permanent.
The keys to distribution order management 36 And as those customer requirements
(DOM) success continue to evolve, so too are warehouse
and distribution center operations and
the automation and software that sup-
Want big gains? Automate the ins and outs 42 port them.
with automated trailer loading systems (ALTS) In our latest Special Digital Issue,
Modern Materials Handling has
curated several feature stories that
A new day for warehouse & distribution 50 neatly encapsulate the evolution of
automated systems and the related tech-
nologies that are revolutionizing how
Automation: Why software is the star 58 warehouse and DC operations work.

Automation Survey: Budgets healthy, 64

though labor availability issues grow
Michael A. Levans, Group Editorial Director
Comments? E-mail me at
mlevans@peerlessmedia.com
Follow me on Twitter: @MikeLeva

Editorial Staff
Michael Levans Bridget McCrea Wendy DelCampo Peerless Media, LLC
Group Editorial Director Editor at Large Senior Art Director Brian Ceraolo
President and CEO
Bob Trebilcock Gary Forger Polly Chevalier
Executive Editor Editor at Large Art Director Editorial Office
50 Speen Street, Suite 302
Noël P. Bodenburg Jeff Berman Daniel Guidera
Framingham, MA 01701
Executive Managing Editor Group News Editor Illustration
508-663-1590
daniel@danielguidera.com
Roberto Michel
Senior Editor Kelly Jones
Production Director

2 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

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Automation

INNOVATION &
AUTOMATION
at DHL Supply Chain
One of the world’s most innovative supply chain
organizations believes the time is right for
autonomous lift trucks—in the right application.

BY BOB TREBILCOCK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR

I
n January 2018, DHL Supply Chain deployed six autonomous
mobile robots (AMR) from Locus Robotics in an 18,000-square-
foot area in a facility handling medical devices. Long considered
one of the most innovative of the world’s third-party logistics (3PL)
providers, DHL Supply Chain understood a lot was still to be learned
from an immature technology, but it wanted to get ahead of the curve
and its competition.
Fast forward, and DHL recently announced it has deployed
more than 2,000 Locus bots in North America and has surpassed
100 million units picked across more than a dozen North American
facilities. There have been a lot of learnings along the way.
The same organization is now tackling autonomous lift trucks.
As it did with AMRs, DHL Supply Chain is starting small, with
a fleet of nine autonomous lift trucks (Crown Equipment) in an
800,000-square-foot facility in Findlay, Ohio. As with the AMRs, the
initial application is limited to a portion of the 800,000-square-foot
facility and is managing a select group of mid- to slow-moving SKUs.
The application is also measured, limited to the putaway and retrieval
of pallets from double-deep pallet rack going up six locations.
However, if history is any guide, we can expect those numbers to
expand in the coming years as the technology matures, and as DHL
Supply Chain gains experience and can apply its learnings to other
processes. In fact, the organization is already piloting a competing
technology in another facility, as it did with AMRs, and eyeing addi-
tional locations where it services the same client as in Findlay. Photos courtesy of DHL

4 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

mmh.com Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 5
 Automation
As with AMRs, operational reasons
called for bringing in more automation,
says Mark Smith, senior vice president
of operations. “In 2018 and 2019, before
the pandemic, labor challenges were
gaining momentum, and we knew we
had to do something to change the face
of that game,” says Smith.
But, so was staying ahead of the com-
petition by having a seat at the table in
the advancement of a promising technol-
ogy. That is also the case with autono-
mous lift trucks, says Sally Miller, CIO
North America for DHL Supply Chain.
She notes that DHL has accelerated
its digitalization program in response
to 12 different trends it monitors and
believes will impact the supply chain.
Examples of those trends include data
analytics, visibility and autonomous
vehicles. “Innovation is the future of our
business,” she says.
Smith and Miller both acknowledge
that autonomous lift trucks have a way
to go before they are routinely deployed.
But they also expect the technology to
mature quickly, especially as more vehi-
cles are deployed in the field, much like
the way AMR technology expanded.
“Operationally, we’re probably two
to five years from where it will evolve
into our sites commonly,” says Smith.
“Right now, people are more productive
than the autonomous vehicles when
they’re working. But we know it’s just
a matter of time before [the vehicles]
gain efficiency and productivity, and we
deploy more of them.”
Getting started
Autonomous lift trucks had been on the
radar for a number of years, but DHL
Supply Chain began looking at them
earnestly in 2018. Responding to the
labor challenge was certainly a catalyst,
says Smith, who adds, “we knew we had
to automate our processes to keep up
with growth.”
6 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
Autonomous reach trucks are capable
of storing and retrieving pallets up to
five levels high in the DHL facility.
But another catalyst was the evolution
going on inside distribution centers as
a result of changing consumer expecta-
tions. “When I began in this role eight
years ago, our focus was on uptime and
getting projects done on time and on
budget,” Miller recalls. “Then came the
Amazon effect, which has attracted a lot
of venture capital money and automation
solutions that were flexible, had different
financial models like robotics-as-a-ser-
vice, and addressed labor challenges. My
role changed and my focus became how
we can integrate these with our existing
technologies and be leaders.”
Miller says DHL’s process is similar
regardless of the technology: Her team
learns about new technologies from trade
shows, such as ProMat and Modex, and
from discussions with startups, venture
capitalists and established solution pro-
viders like Crown.
From those discussions, DHL goes
through a proof of concept, and if it sur-
vives that stage, on to a pilot. If it makes
it through the pilot stage, a technology
goes into a product stage, where plans
are put in place to roll out the technol-
ogy. “By getting our hands on things,
we can see where they might fit,” says
Miller. “Not everything makes it to the
product stage.”
Part of what attracted DHL to the
concept of autonomous lift trucks was
the sheer scale of its operations: An esti-
mated 25 million miles traveled a year on
manual lift trucks across 500 facilities.
“There is tremendous potential for
improvement,” Miller says. The other
is that around 2018, traditional materi-
als handling equipment (MHE) ven-
dors, such as Crown and JBT in this
instance, were getting into the game.
The startups DHL had experimented
with didn’t make it through the proof
of concept stage.
However, “when we got our hands
on the Crown unit, travel and lift
times were consistent, and we were
able to continually improve on perfor-
mance. The startups we worked with
just didn’t hit the same performance
levels,” Miller recalls. “With MHE ven-
dors getting into the game, we knew we
could get traction.”
The people side of automation
Despite working with an established ven-
dor, autonomous lift trucks are not yet
plug and play. They still have a way to go.
“Right now, people are more produc-
tive than autonomous vehicles, and in
my mind, operationally, we’re two to
five years before they will be routinely
deployed into our sites,” says Smith. At
the same time, he adds, “after working
with them, we know it’s just a matter of
mmh.com
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Automation
time before we see efficiency and pro-
ductivity gains.”
Those realities led to about a year
of upfront work before going live in
June 2021.
On the OEM side, work between
Crown and JBT helped integrate JBT’s
guidance and control system into
Crown’s lift trucks. On DHL’s side,
there was engineering work to integrate
the technology with the facility’s ware-
house management system (WMS)
and to change the layout of the facility.
DHL determined early on that it didn’t
want to mix conventional and autono-
mous vehicles in the same workspace
for safety reasons.
“With AMRs, you can mix people
and autonomous vehicles, so there isn’t
as much of a need to revisit all of your
processes,” Miller says. “That’s some-
thing that companies underestimate
with autonomous lift trucks: People
want to drop in the new technology
and declare victory.”
In this project, a cross-functional
team representing IT and operations,
along with resources from solution
design and operating expense teams,
worked on the project. “As we rolled up
our sleeves, we realized there were vir-
tual barriers and physical barriers that we
had to deal with,” Smith says.
The virtual barrier was related to
people, as is often the case when bring-
ing in new technology. It was important
to communicate to the workforce what
they were doing, why they were doing it,
and how it might impact jobs.
“We held a number of town hall meet-
ings and were very transparent,” says
Smith. “Our associates have embraced
the technology. They’re aware of the
issues we have with turnover and absen-
teeism because of the overtime they’re
being asked to work.” As happened when
DHL rolled out AMRs, they found that
associates like working in environments
8 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
Lift trucks
receive an
opportunity
charge during
the shift.
with cutting-edge technology.
While lift truck operators may have
been concerned about losing their jobs,
the reality was that DHL created a new
team of eight virtual operators known as
taskers. They monitor the autonomous
lift trucks from a control center as they
perform their tasks. In addition, they
have a team of trained supervisors dedi-
cated to that area. And, since the vehicles
Bring on the taskers
T he introduction of autonomous lift
trucks created the opening for
a new role on the floor: A tasker. A
total of eight taskers were selected to
monitor the fleet of nine vehicles. The
operators are spread across multiple
shifts in a facility that operates seven
days a week, so the whole team isn’t
working at one time. They work from
a control room to remotely monitor
operations and intervene if an opera-
tional issue arises.
According to Mark Smith, senior
vice president of operations, the job
was posted like any other job, includ-
ing a job description along with a list
of the job requirements. After the se-
lection process, taskers went through
a formal training session that included
time with Crown and JBT so that they
can operate either manually or autono-
mously, the taskers and the supervisors
can intervene if the lift truck runs into
an issue.
“The taskers and supervisors manage
the volume from an order management
perspective and manage oversight of the
lift trucks,” Smith says.
Issues that led to intervention early
in the project included unreadable bar
codes, bad pallets or poorly built pallet
loads, and cobwebs. The latter confused
the cameras, which misread them as bar
codes. “We had a lot of human interven-
tion on the front end,” Smith says. “A
year later, we’ve cut the manual inter-
ventions in half.”
Engineering a solution
The physical barrier was another mat-
ter. During the proof of concept, it
was decided to segregate the autono-
mous lift trucks in their own area,
away from manually operated lift
trucks. To do that, DHL created a pal-
let storage area for slow-moving SKUs.
It was located with the shortest pos-
understood the software that man-
ages the autonomous lift trucks. After
training, they were embedded in the
project. “All of the taskers already had
familiarity with the building, and then
they went through the launch with
us,” Smith says.
According to Sally Miller, CIO for
North America, in the initial imple-
mention, one tasker monitored three
lift trucks. As DHL has become more
familiar with the trucks and improved
the process, one tasker per shift can
now monitor the entire fleet. In fact, in
the final accepted system, one tasker
can monitor up to 12 vehicles. “That’s
where you get your ROI,” she says,
“reducing your interventions so you
don’t have to have as many people
monitoring individual units.”
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Automation
sible travel time between the inbound
and outbound areas.
“The lift trucks aren’t fast enough to
handle our fastest-moving SKUs, where
we need to clear out a lot of pallets at top
speed,” Smith notes. In all, the autono-
mous lift trucks handle between 10% and
15% of the total SKUs in an area repre-
senting about 25% of the total building.
Pallets are stored in a double-deep pallet
rack that reaches six levels high.
Perhaps the last piece was integrating
the autonomous lift trucks with DHL’s
WMS. According to Smith, that was the
least complicated part of the integration.
“It went very smoothly, and now we have
that baseline capability that we can roll
out to other facilities,” he says.
In the final process, conventional lift
trucks deliver pallets from receiving to
a drop zone adjacent to the storage area
for slow-moving SKUs. Those pallets
are picked up by the autonomous lift
trucks and put away into storage. On
Putting autonomous lift trucks
to work in a pallet warehouse
The technology is still maturing, says DHL Supply Chain,
but autonomous lift trucks are moving full pallets and
delivering value in a production setting in Ohio.
I
n Northwest Ohio, DHL Supply
Chain has rolled out a fleet of nine
autonomous lift trucks to manage the
putaway and retrieval of a select array
of SKUs. The trucks work in an area of
the warehouse that has been segregated
for the storage of mid- to slow-moving
SKUs. The area is also relatively near
the inbound and outbound areas of the
facility to reduce travel time.
Receiving: The process is initiated
when inbound pallets are received in
the warehouse. Operators on conven-
tional lift trucks deliver the pallets to
10 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
the outbound side,
pallets are retrieved
by the autonomous
lift trucks and deliv-
ered to the drop zone,
where they are picked
up by conventional lift
trucks and taken to
shipping. Autonomous lift
After about 18 trucks are still an
emerging technology,
months of operation, but DHL plans to take
Smith says they have learnings from Ohio
learned along the way. to expand their use in
other facilities.
For example: Who
would’ve expected that
cobwebs would be an issue? “But we have Miller and Smith believe their experi-
those lift trucks up and running; they’re ence with emerging technologies like
doing the job they were designed to do in autonomous lift trucks is key to main-
a production environment,” he adds. taining the 3PL’s competitive advantage.
Based on the experience in Findlay, “When we began this project, we
DHL is now experimenting with autono- said: We’re the biggest in the industry;
mous lift trucks from Hyster in another we have to figure this out and make it
facility, and considering other locations work,” says Smith. “We took on that
for the equipment from Crown and JBT. challenge and made it work.”
DHL Supply Chain
Findlay, Ohio
SIZE: 800,000 square feet
ITEMS: Palletized food products
a rack location in a drop zone area. System suppliers
Essentially, it acts as a pallet-sized put- AUTONOMOUS LIFT TRUCKS:
Crown and JBT
wall. The drop zone area also serves as
WMS: Blue Yonder
a border between where conventional
lift trucks operate and autonomous lift
trucks operate. to fill an order, an autonomous lift truck
Putaway: Once pallets are in place, is tasked with retrieving it from a storage
an autonomous lift truck is tasked with location. The lift truck then delivers it to
retrieving a pallet from the drop zone a location in the drop zone.
and delivering it to a storage location in Shipping: Operators on conven-
an area that consists of double-deep pal- tional lift trucks retrieve the pallet from
let rack that is six levels high. The pal- the drop zone and transport them to
lets are now available to promise. shipping, where they will be loaded onto
Retrieval: When a pallet is required an outbound truck. •
mmh.com
5 Questions (and Answers) About
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throughout your distribution center to balance work for What are the capabilities of a WES?
optimum material flow.
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With a WES, a distribution center’s operations can be a WES interface?
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What types of processes does a WES enable?
CARTONS (ORDERS)
What types of operations will benefit the most
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10
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4 BALANCED
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Automation

SOFTWARE SURVEY:

Users cautiously
embrace change
Our annual look at the software market shows how companies are
using software and automation solutions in their warehouses and
DCs and how they plan to put these tools to work in the future.

BY BRIDGET MCCREA, EDITOR AT LARGE

A
s organizations continue to layer modern a labor shortage and improve customer service levels.
capabilities into their fulfillment operations, With competition heating up, pandemic-driven supply
more of them are adopting software and auto- chain shortages still in full effect and customer prefer-
mation that help them meet demand, manage ences evolving, these technologies are helping companies
optimize their current fulfillment
operations and plan for what’s
How would you best describe your company’s adoption coming around the corner.
of technology for your materials handling procedures? To learn more about current
and future materials handling
2019 2020 2021 2022
software and automation trends—
50%
including readiness for adoption,
44%
39% the types of automation being
35% used in the warehouse and what’s
27%
24% 23% on the planning table right now—
18% 19% 17%
15% 16% 15% Peerless Research Group recently
13% 13%
10% conducted its annual “2022 Mate-
7% 7%
5%
3% rials Handling Technology Study.”
More than 100 Modern Mate-
Innovators Early Cautiously Take Slow/Among
adopters embrace wait-and-see last to adopt rials Handling readers provided
change approach technology input for the online survey.
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG) Respondents shared their views

12 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

 How has the current economic climate
changed your company’s approach
to adopting materials handling
management software?
We are moving forward with
26%
new software investment this year

Plan to hold off on our

28%
software investments this year

We are scrutinizing software investments

22%
and will move forward cautiously

We plan to upgrade existing software

20%
instead of buying new software packages

We plan to outsource more

11%
software implementations

Other 7%

Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)

of current software usage, returns on investment, and key
goals related to their software purchases.
The usage survey covers a range of applications to man-
age warehouse processes and execution, as well as higher
level supply planning and execution functions. The purview
of the survey spans everything from WMS and warehouse
execution systems (WES) software for DCs, to functions
such as supply chain planning, demand planning, distrib-
uted order management (DOM) software, as well as trans-
portation management software (TMS).

What are the main reasons your company is planning to consider or buy
warehouse management software (WMS) during the next 2 years?
50%
48% 48% 2021 2022
43% 43%
38% 39%
36%
33% 32%
29% 29%

19%
14%
12% 11%

Real-time Labor Inventory New picking Upgrade of Yard Slotting Other

control management deployment requirements existing package management
Note: Due to the small number of cases for WMS, data are unstable and any projections based on this information may be unreliable.
Figures should be used with caution.

Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)

mmh.com Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 13

 Automation
Which of the following software applications are currently
in use in your warehousing and distribution environment?
Warehouse management software
(WMS, inventory management, etc.)
Transportation management software
(TMS)
Labor management software
(LMS, workforce management software)
Supply chain management and planning
(SCP) software (such as supply
chain planning, demand planning, etc.)
Asset tracking software
Warehouse execution systems
(WES)
Yard management systems
(YMS)
Distributed order management
(DOM)
Slotting software
Robotics control system
Other
None of these
Cautiously embracing change
Personally involved in the use, evalu-
ation of and acquisition of software
for their company’s materials handling
operations, this year’s survey respon-
dents work in the manufacturing (35%),
retail/e-tail (16%), wholesale (12%) and
consulting (10%) industries.
Sixteen percent of respondents are
vice presidents or general managers,
14 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
pany is in the phase of “cautiously
embracing change” when it comes to
technology, while 19% are taking a
53%
wait-and-see approach and 23% say
66%
56% they are moving slow and among the
30% last to adopt technology. Seven per-
26%
cent consider their companies to be
26%
“innovators” when it comes to materials
24%
18%
handling technology adoption, and 7%
24% identify as early adopters.
24% The current economic climate has
32% impacted some companies’ approach to
30%
adopting materials handling management
21% software, with 28% saying they plan to
21%
19% hold off on software investments in 2022.
However, 26% are moving forward with
20%
new software investments and 22% say
16%
26% they are scrutinizing software investments
2020
17% and moving forward cautiously. Twenty
2021
8%
percent are planning to upgrade existing
7% 2022
software instead of buying new software
10%
16%
packages, and 11% plan to outsource
15% more software implementations.
7% Asked which top issues they’re trying
8% to solve with a new materials handling
11%
management software applications,
4% respondents cite productivity, inventory
3%
7% accuracy, accurate visibility of material,
cost and time, e-commerce volumes and
7%
5% transparency across supply chains as their
4% biggest pain points.
17% For most companies, use of materi-
11%
als handling software has not changed
17%
over the past two years, with 60% say-
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)
ing usage has stayed the same. Mean-
while, 38% say their materials handling
software usage has increased in the
while 13% are corporate or divisional past 24 months, and 2% say it has
managers, and 14% are warehouse decreased.
managers or supervisors. One-third of
the companies (33%) have annual rev- Warehouse management
enues of less than $10 million, while solutions reign
16% reported revenues of $2.5 billion or Right now, more than half (56%) of
more, and 14% reported annual revenues companies surveyed are using ware-
of $100 million to $249.9 million. house management software (WMS,
Right now, nearly half of the survey inventory management, etc.), 30% are
respondents (44%) say their com- using supply chain management and
mmh.com
planning (SCP) software, and 26% are
currently using a transportation man-
agement system (TMS).
Additionally, 26% are using warehouse
execution systems (WES), 24% are using
labor management software (LMS) and
19% are using asset tracking software. Fif-
teen percent of respondents are using dis-
tributed order management (DOM), 11%
are using slotting software, 7% are using
yard management systems (YMS) and 7%
are using a robotic control system.
Asked about the software they plan
to evaluate, purchase or upgrade in the
next 24 months, 32% of respondents say
they’re interested in WMS, 20% want
robotic control systems, 19% say LMS
and 17% want supply chain management
and planning software.
When adopting materials handling
software, 39% of respondents say com-
patibility with existing systems is a major
roadblock, while 38% point to integra-
tion with existing software applications.
Other obstacles to implementation suc-
cess include the total cost of ownership
of such systems (37%); compatibility
with host or legacy systems (36%); the
lack of resources to implement, manage,
and maintain such systems (35%); and
substantiating ROI (30%).
Who’s using WMS and for what?
Of the companies that currently have
a WMS in place in their warehouse or
DC, 10% have had the technology for
less than one year, 28% for less than
five years and 31% for five to 10 years.
Fourteen percent of companies have
had their WMS solutions in place for
15+ years.
Many companies have upgraded
their WMS since putting it into place.
Twenty-eight percent say they upgraded
their WMS less than one year ago, 41%
say one to less than five years ago and
7% say five to less than 10 years ago. Fif-
mmh.com
For which initiatives is your company using your
supply chain management software application?
Order management
Procurement
Inventory visibility
Manufacturing
Demand planning
e-commerce fulfillment
Collaborative forecasting, planning and
replenishment (CFPR)
CRM
RFID integration
Collaboration with vendor/suppliers
Upgrade of existing package
Event management
teen percent of respondents have never
upgraded their WMS solutions.
Ten percent of respondents realized
their WMS ROI within six months
or less, but nearly half of readers say
they’ve yet to realize the return on their
WMS investment or they don’t know if
it’s been realized. Fourteen percent say
it took more than 18 months to reach
their ROI goals, another 14% realized it
within 12 to 18 months, and 14% say it
took 6 to 12 months.
When asked the main reasons why
their company plans on considering or
buying a WMS in the next two years,
50% want improved labor management,
48% are looking for real-time control,
43% want to upgrade an existing software
package and 39% want better inventory
deployment. Thirty-six percent say their
drivers are new picking requirements,
Special Digital Issue: Automation
62%
62%
54%
54%
46%
46%
39%
39%
31%
23%
15%
8%
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)
and 32% say they’re investing in a new
WMS due to slotting requirements.
Managing transportation
According to the survey, 36% of respon-
dents have had their TMS in place for
one to less than five years, 36% for 5 to
10 years, 14% for 10 to 15 years, and
7% for 15 years or more. Fourteen per-
cent upgraded their TMS less than one
year ago, while 43% made that move
one to five years ago and 19% have not
upgraded at all.
Twenty-one percent of respondents
say they realized their TMS ROI in less
than six months, while 29% achieved
that goal within 6 to 12 months. Twenty-
three percent hit the ROI target on
their TMS within 12 to 18 months and
19% aren’t sure whether that goal was
attained yet.
| October 2022 15
 Automation
Why are you or would you use Cloud-based applications?
What do you see as the benefits?
39%
Everyone has access to the same information/data 40%
41%
36%
Better visibility 45%
41%
36%
Easy to implement, deploy or upgrade applications 45%
33%
36%
It’s more cost effective 20%
24%
28%
Accessibility, speed of service and quicker access
25%
to the marketplace
22%
28%
Applications are scalable 25%
26%
2020
22% 2021
Access to analytical data 20% 2022
19%
19%
Security 25%
28%
19%
To run our ERP platform 20%
19%
17%
To run our e-commerce apps 35%
17%
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)
Supply chain management Just more than half (54%) of respon-
and planning solution usage dents say they haven’t seen—or, aren’t
The survey found that 31% of companies sure if they’ve seen—an ROI from their
have had their supply chain management SCM and SCP solutions yet. Mean-
(SCM) and supply chain planning (SCP) while, 18% say it took more than 18
solutions in place for 12 months or less months to realize ROI, 10% realized it
while 23% have been using these solu- within 12 to 18 months, and 5% hit the
tions for one to five years. target within six months or less.
Another 23% say 5 to 10 years and Companies are using SCM and
15% of companies have had their SCM SCP for multiple initiatives around the
and SCP software in place for 15+ years. warehouse. Sixty-two percent say they
Asked about the last time they upgraded are using the technology for order man-
their SCM/SCP solutions, 8% say it agement, while 62% point to procure-
happened less than one year ago, 8% say ment, 54% use it for inventory visibility
10 to 15 years ago, and 15% have not and 54% to manage manufacturing.
upgraded these systems. Other reasons for investing in SCM
16 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
and SCP include demand planning
(46%), e-commerce fulfillment (46%),
collaborative forecasting, planning and
replenishment (39%), and customer
relationship management (39%).
Adopting new innovations
More than half of companies are running
Cloud-based applications, up from 36%
in 2021. Eleven percent say they are
currently evaluating or plan to evaluate
Cloud applications in the next 12 to 24
months, 26% of companies say Cloud
computing is not an option for them, and
13% are unsure of their company’s inter-
est in Cloud-based software.
Companies are adopting Cloud-based
software for various reasons, with access
to the same information and data across
all team members (41%), better opera-
tional visibility (41%) and ease of imple-
mentation (33%) being the top drivers.
Additionally, 28% of survey respon-
dents say security is a key reason for
adopting Cloud technology, 26% view
the applications as scalable and 24% say
the Cloud is more cost effective. The
majority (68%) of respondents are using
or planning to use Cloud-based WMS,
TMS, LMS, slotting and/or order man-
agement and planning solutions—up
from 60% in 2021.
The survey also covered the future of
warehouse and DC software and automa-
tion, which may incorporate more Big
Data usage, which is currently being used
by 23% of respondents (and 41% have no
plans to adopt it in the near future).
Twelve percent are currently using
artificial intelligence (AI) and another
28% plan to evaluate it at some point.
Finally, 20% of respondents are using
the Internet of Things (IoT) and 16% are
either evaluating or thinking about how
IoT can help them digitalize their fulfill-
ment operations. •
mmh.com
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Automation

How WES is changing

the game for
fulfillment centers

Warehouse execution systems sit

between warehouse management and
traditional control layers in today’s DC
software stack, but WES is more than
a visibility layer. Using rules engines
and order release logic that assesses
multiple factors, WES promises
smarter, more productive DCs.

18 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

 BY ROBERTO MICHEL, SENIOR EDITOR

A
s more warehouses add automation, using technologies
like automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS),
robotics, and conveyor and sortation systems along with
manually focused processes, the need for a relatively
new type of software to coordinate all these resources has arisen:
the warehouse execution system (WES).
WES is catching on because it can coordinate resources
around incoming orders with full knowledge of the availability
of automation resources. And, perhaps the best sign of the
demand for WES is that more warehouse management system
(WMS) vendors are building up WES offerings of their own.
WES sits between traditional WMS and the warehouse
control system (WCS) layer that runs automated materials
handling equipment on the warehouse floor. The overall role
of WES is “orchestrating” the release of work to resources and
doing it in a way that hits shipment times while level loading
across subsystems to avoid bottlenecks.
“You can think of WES as the central hub of information for a
warehouse,” says Austin Santich, director of systems engineering
with Matthews Automation Solutions, a WES provider. “WES is
constantly getting data flowing up from controls, coming in from
the subsystems it interfaces to, as well as information coming
down from WMS. We use that data and information to create
a balance across the building and a continuous flow of product.
The goal is to always have work in front of resources and opera-
tors, but never overrun an area with too much work.”
The value of WES, however, is multi-faceted. It’s an over-sim-
plification to say that WES acts like a “conductor” for fulfillment
centers. To fully understand WES, it’s best to dig a little deeper.
WES handles order release and “waves” differently than
most WMS solutions, using software-based rules engines to
make decisions on how to route and balance work. It’s also
important to note that WES isn’t the domain of just a few best-
of-breed vendors: major warehouse automation vendors also
offer WES, and several WMS providers have built it into their
offerings. Here are a few ways WES is changing the game.

Smarter order release

Traditional WMS lacks the real-time visibility into the avail-
ability of automated materials handling equipment that a WES
brings to the table. That visibility and associated rules engines
are at the heart of how these systems orchestrate work to

mmh.com Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 19

Automation
achieve a more productive operation.
“WES is doing that intelligent order
release to decide which are the best
orders and work to release right now,
based on the real-time conditions in all
the subsystems in all of the downstream
processing areas,” says Santich.
The rules in WES should be configu-
rable to allow the system to make smart
decisions about which resources in the
current order pool to release work to,
adds Santich.
WES considers order priority and
carrier cut off times, but the rules may
also know which subsystems can accom-
modate special handling requirements,
like which pack-out lines have the right
consumables to pack up orders that use logic drives a productive flow for the overall system.
certain sized cartons or gift wrapping,
or that have a shrink-wrap machine to
add privacy wrap. WES does this in the
background, on a constant basis.
“There a number of different checks
the software is doing as part of intelli-
gent order release,” Santich says.
A WES solution’s ability to orchestrate
20 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
WES as central hub for information
Unit sort
Tote sort Cartons (orders)
WES
Continuous Exception
picking management area
Balanced order flow Real-time error resolution
Source: Matthews Automation
Through functions including order release, dynamic load balancing, order finishing and
real-time management of automated materials handling systems, WES information and
a warehouse is closely tied to how effec- a few years back with a capability called
tive its order and work release functional- Order Streaming, but now it also offers a
ity is, agrees Adam Kline, senior director fuller WES module. The two are distinct,
of product management with Manhattan explains Kline, but work hand in hand to
Associates, which offers WES capabili- achieve orchestration, tapping the order
ties within its WMS. streaming engine. “When you boil it
Manhattan began its foray into WES down, Order Streaming helps determine
which orders I take action on, and when
I release the work associated with those
orders, and which resources I release the
work to in order to drive the most effi-
ciency in the warehouse,” says Kline.
Follow the rules
WES features can vary widely. Some
vendors have modules to manage capa-
bilities like voice picking or pick-to-
light, but at a high level, WES vendors
will typically have some type of rules
engine for deciding how to release work
against the current order pool.
“The WES needs to be able to factor
in multiple variables, including order
priority, optimization opportunities,
including inventory and resource avail-
ability, carrier cutoff times, and other
capacities and constraints,” says Dan
Gilmore, chief marketing officer for
mmh.com
Softeon, which offers WES and WMS. WES’s role in fulfillment centers
“That is where a dynamic rules engine
comes in, by being able to assess all ERP and
order management
those variables, and allowing these deci-
sions to be made automatically.”
Importantly, adds Gilmore, a WES
isn’t just for assigning work to automa- LMS WMS TMS

tion. A good WES should be able to

allocate work to manual processes, like
associates picking items to a cart. This COFE (WES)
is often necessary if order lines that • Order attributes • Reporting optimization • Supervision and labor

need to be shipped out can’t fit into an Pick-to-light Unit sorter Conveyor RF picking
automated system, or the automation is machine control machine control machine control machine control

currently too full to release more to. Source: VARGO

“We also believe that WES can play
a very strong role in managing non-auto-
mated processes, as well as automated
systems,” says Gilmore.
Fulfilling e-commerce orders is
especially complex because of the order
variability involved, but WES makes
it possible to instantly find efficien-
cies against available resources, while
accommodating order demand as it
comes in rather than in large batches of
work that have to fully processed before
accommodating additional new orders,
says Art Eldred, vice president and
growth officer for VARGO.
Eldred says VARGO’s WES uses a
combination of a rules and “neural logic”
algorithms to drive order release, even
for the most complex operations.
“An e-commerce fulfillment center
is very much like a manufacturing pro-
duction line,” Eldred says. “Only, you’re
not making a car, you’re manufacturing
orders, and the difficulty there is that
practically no two orders are alike. As a
result, there is a high amount of sequenc-
ing of work in efficiently managing that
‘manufacturing’ of an e-commerce order,
which is what WES addresses.”
Pull, don’t push
Rather than planning out large batches
of work and pushing them onto the
A good WES solution can create efficient, pull-based flow across an entire operation by
dynamically optimizing automation and labor in real time with continuous order release.
floor, Eldred says VARGO’s WES uses
a pull-based methodology to process
orders in a continuous fashion. The
picking engine in VARGO’s WES
constantly assess order priority and
shipment times, as well as resource
availability, in deciding how to release
work, Eldred explains. “WES is opti-
mizing for efficiency, but it’s also opti-
mizing for expediency,” he says. “The
picking engine will seamlessly make
those decisions and strike the right
balance.”
A WES seeks to create level flow for
an operation, but it can still group work
for efficiencies, or to make best use of
an automated resource like a putwall by
sending it the correct items and work
that allow the putwall to turn rapidly,
notes Gilmore.
While a WES can support continu-
ous order release, Santich says a WES
may sometimes devise small batches
to find efficiencies, especially with
putwall systems. “Typically, in these
large direct-to-consumer fulfillment
operations, we’re supporting some type
of batch and sort to find efficiencies,”
he says.
Automate decision making
Because a good WES is “always on” in
terms of knowing resource availability
and the progress of work on the floor,
its order release logic will automatically
avoid bottlenecks. The result of this,
says Gilmore, is that managers in fulfill-
ment centers can let the WES make
crucial decisions that impact the flow
of the warehouse, rather than trying to
figure it out on their own by looking at
multiple user interfaces or data, says
Gilmore.
“With WMS, a lot of manual deci-
sion-making is involved, with supervi-
sors looking at screens and trying to
figure out what to do next, and that
becomes problematic,” Gilmore says.
“For one thing, a computer is always
going to assess more factors better than
a human can, and second, when you
have to rely on human decision-mak-
ing, it adds latency to the process.”
It does take some effort to configure
a WES, but once this is done, key deci-
sions around order release and balanc-
ing the resources in the building can
be automatic, which leads to a “smart
warehouse” outcome, says Gilmore. “If

mmh.com Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 21

Automation
there is a bottleneck starting to form
in one area, the WES is going to slow
the release of work into that resource
and will recognize alternate paths and
resources that can be used,” Gilmore
explains.
Kline notes that with increasing use of
advanced goods-to-person automation, a
key WES benefit is that it can maximize
throughput from those high-end invest-
ments, while still being able to route
some work to more manual methods.
“In theory, your automated resources are
going to be more efficient and less expen-
sive than a manual flow, so the ideal
situation is to highly utilize the automa-
tion whenever that makes sense, and
the spillover goes to a manual workflow,”
Kline says. “That is part of orchestration.”
Is WES a must?
There is no simple answer to when
companies need a WES, either from a
WMS vendor or in the form of a third-
party WES, says Michael Wohlwend,
a managing principal with Alpine Sup-
ply Chain Solutions, a consulting firm
that helps companies with WMS proj-
ects. Even though some of the major
22 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
WMS vendors have made strides with
embedded WES during the last couple
of years, the need for WES tends to be
company specific, and may even vary
by site, he adds, with some companies
able to get by with WMS and some
controls integration.
“The need for WES is going to
depend on what they have in terms of
current WMS and WCS capabilities,
on the current level of automation and
their plans for more automation, and
on core factors like their order profile
and how that is changing, and issues
like shipping cut-off times,” Wohlwend
says. “It ultimately comes back to
whether what they have today is work-
ing well enough for them.”
While not all WMS providers offer
WES, more have added some capabili-
ties. As a result, for some companies,
WES may be more about configuring
and turning on what is available from a
WMS provider.
Increasingly, operational complexity
and more use of automation is increas-
ing the need for WES, notes Amit Levy,
executive vice president of customer
solutions and strategy with Made4net,
a WMS provider that has added a WES
extension to its WMS suite.
“Today much more automation is
being used in warehouses, whether in
the form of conveyors, sortation, auto-
mated storage and retrieval systems,
or mobile robots,” says Levy. “There
are also more operations doing omni-
channel, so the complexity of running
a DC increases and as a result, makes
it more challenging for the WMS solu-
tions to support all these automated
components.”
To address this need, adds Levy,
Made4net’s warehouse execution
extension serves the orchestration role
for automated resources and manual
workflows with a task-control engine.
“The system is able to manage all
warehouse resources, the manual
workflows, the robots, and the fixed
automation with one task-control
engine, and with the objective of
synchronizing all these resources to
execute on time,” says Levy. “The
main benefit is to have it all—both the
WMS and the WES functions—run-
ning on a single platform.”
Whatever path is chosen—turning to
a WMS vendor, an automation partner,
or a WES specialist—WES is likely to
be in the future for more companies as
service-level commitments increase,
and more automation is deployed. That
should help companies get more from
their automation spend, and from man-
ual processes.
“When WES is done well, you’re
going to be able to get more throughput
for a given unit of automation,” Gilm-
ore concludes. “You can either buy less
automation to achieve your throughput
goal or get more throughput out of the
same amount of automation. I don’t
think companies are yet factoring in
what is possible with WES.” •
mmh.com
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Automation

AUTONOMOUS LIFT TRUCKS:

The human equation
Operations are deploying autonomous lift trucks to offset pressures
like rising order volumes and the inability to secure enough skilled operators.
The ironic tinge here is that even though industry needs robots,
it turns out the robots need people.

BY ROBERTO MICHEL, SENIOR EDITOR

A
fundamental distinction with autono-
mous lift trucks often gets overlooked:
Autonomous lift trucks typically need
some level of human oversight and
help.
Even robotic lift trucks, designed to operate
in full autonomous mode, have some type of
performance monitoring and exception han-
dling technology that features a human in a
support role. Additionally, “dual-mode” trucks
are capable of operating autonomously, but
designed so a trained operator can get on the
unit and make use of it for ad-hoc tasks.
For certain, greater industry uptake of
autonomous lift trucks will reduce the need
for human operators overall, but humans will
still play a role in many deployments of auton-
omous lift trucks.
“Humans and autonomous vehicles are
intimately linked in a variety of ways,” says
Daniel Theobold, founder of autonomous lift
truck provider Vecna Robotics and co-founder
of industry group MassRobotics, which works
on robotics interoperability. “One way to think
about this tie is as a supervisor-supervisee
relationship. Robots are smart, but they aren’t
magic. They’re going to need some help and
supervision, just like human workers need help
and supervision.”
As part of its autonomous solutions, Vecna
offers software for fleet insights as well as
remote support and supervision services.
Autonomous tech is proven, Theobold says,
but it makes sense for vendors to build in
remote support and exception handling mech-
anisms so if an unexpected issue arises, a sup-
port person can resolve matters rapidly.
“With exception handling, first of all, you
have to have an autonomy system that’s smart
enough to know when it needs help, and then
you need to have a system that allows the
robots to get help very quickly,” says Theobold.
In short, operations increasingly need
autonomous lift trucks, but autonomous fleets
need human support to work well. Addition-
ally, a growing spectrum of autonomous lift
truck types and use cases is emerging, some
featuring dual-mode operation. For lift truck
fleets that operate in full autonomous mode
nearly all the time, the role of robotic lift truck
supervisor may end up going to former lift
truck operators.

24 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com


Exception handling
Under ideal conditions such as closed
aisles, perfect loads and pristine pallets,
lift truck autonomy works well, but con-
ditions are often less than ideal, lead-
ing to the need for online support and
exception handling, say vendors.
“It’s all about realizing that exceptions
are exceptional,” Theobold says. “You need
to be able to resolve any issues rapidly to
ensure safety and reliability for the fleet.”
Human support people, Theobold
says, have the cognitive skills and
mmh.com
Autonomous lift trucks for
high-density, very narrow aisle
environments like this Raymond
Automated Transtacker, or
TRT, are designed to run in full
autonomous mode integrated
with a WMS to achieve
maximum efficiencies.
intelligence to help robots make good,
safe decisions. A “human in the loop”
approach, he adds, is preferable to tun-
ing an autonomy platform to ignore
inputs that are unlikely to be hazards
but have a slight chance of being an
actual hazard if totally ignored by the
platform. The safest bet, he adds, is hav-
ing a human help resolve exceptions to
keep performance on track.
“Actually, as long as the robots are
getting their work done and achieving
the expected throughput, customers
Special Digital Issue: Automation
don’t really care if the exceptions are
resolved within the robots’ head, so to
speak, or if they are getting help from a
human,” Theobold says.
In practice, the extent of human
involvement with robotic lift trucks
tends to be application specific and
can be influenced by how controlled
the environment is, points out Jim
Gaskell, director of global automation
and emerging technologies for Crown
Equipment, which offers autonomous
lift trucks with dual-mode capabilities.
“The mix of automated and manual
operation depends a great deal on the
lift truck type and the application,”
Gaskell says. “Some applications are
designed to isolate the automated vehi-
cles within the aisle or within specific
areas of the warehouse, where manual
operation is used only to handle inter-
ventions, such as product or vehicle
exceptions. Other applications, such as
automated transport, operate in a less
structured environment so the vehicles
are more likely to encounter situations
that require manual intervention.”
For example, Gaskell says, a Crown
“DualMode” tow tractor can transport
a train of carts autonomously with
high reliability the majority of the
time, but for as much of 10% of the
time, a trained operator might drive
the vehicle for reasons including mov-
ing it around an unexpected obstacle
or completing an unscheduled deliv-
ery. Other reasons might include driv-
ing the tow tractor to manual charging
station, or to a maintenance area, or
any location it needs to get to that is
not located on its set routes.
While dual-mode trucks have flexibil-
ity, says Gaskell, in practice, autonomous
operation is achievable the vast majority
of the time, freeing trained operators for
other tasks, while getting the most value
from the autonomous fleet.
| October 2022 25
Automation
“In a typical DualMode reach truck
application, the vehicle is operated
manually only to navigate to a charg-
ing station or maintenance area, or to
recover it from an exception that caused
the vehicle to suspend automated opera-
tion,” Gaskell says. “Manual operation
that involves pallet movement is avoided
so that nearly 100% of its production
time is spent in automated mode.”
Another human element with lift
truck autonomy is that the idea man-
ager for robotic lift trucks may often
be a former lift truck operator, since
they have hands-on knowledge of pallet
workflows.
“This new role provides a natu-
ral career path for existing lift truck
operators,” observes Gaskell. “Employ-
ees who work with automatic guided
vehicles must fully understand the
operational and safety requirements
associated with both automated and
manual operation, so existing lift truck
operators have a head start. Existing
operators will also have a good under-
standing of load quality—how the
pallet is stacked and loaded—which is
a key contributor to a successful auto-
mation implementation.”
Growing options
At the lower-cost end of the autono-
mous lift truck spectrum, solutions are
emerging to address the need to auto-
mate ad-hoc, lower-volume tasks.
For example, earlier this year, Vecna
and Big Joe partnered to bring out an
autonomous pallet jack, the Vecna CPJ.
Big Joe offers its own version of the
autonomous pallet jack, known as the
Big Joe “BUD.”
The unit is a collaborative or “cobot”
pallet jack, so called because while it
can operate in full autonomous mode
using Vecna’s technology, it can also be
operated manually when that makes
26 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
sense. Big Joe, known for conventional
pallet jacks, pallet riders and other lift
truck products, designed the pallet
jack with autonomy in mind, building
in features such as lithium power for
opportunity charging, a compact form
factor and a low-profile fork section
that makes it easier to spear a load
autonomously, says Bill Pedriana, chief
marketing officer for Big Joe.
Overall, says Pedriana, the cobot
pallet jack is designed fill an under-
served need: autonomous pallet move-
ments that are lower volume, and
typically are ad-hoc tasks where the
need to start the task is determined by
a front-line worker. Without an autono-
mous pallet jack, he adds, most opera-
tions end up having workers manually
operate a conventional pallet jack or
pallet rider, which can consume vast
amounts of labor time on “travel”—the
time spent moving a load from Point A
to Point B.
“There are a lot of workflows that are
more happenstance in nature—the load
is ready to be moved when someone
determines it’s time to move it,” says
Pedriana. “It could be something like a
parts request for a maintenance activity
on the other side of a facility, or mov-
ing a work-in-process [WIP] load from
one area to another, or moving dun-
nage, or moving a load of empty pallets.
We call it ‘user-directed automation,’
because the load needs to be moved
on an on-demand basis, as determined
by a worker, yet you would rather have
that worker stay in place, doing higher
value-added tasks.”
The missions and destination points
for the autonomous pallet jack from
Vecna and Big Joe can be configured in
software without the need to integrate
the cobot to a warehouse management
system (WMS). The integrated tablet
on each robot can be used to select
and start missions once they are estab-
lished. With robotics-as-a-service (RaaS)
available for these units, Pedriana says
the modest monthly fee for the cobots
opens the door to the benefits lift truck
autonomy to a broader range of use
cases and market segments.
“Our focus with this initial unit is
small to medium-sized enterprises,
because it offers an approachable price
point for gaining payback on these the
smaller, user-directed workflows, or as a
way to automate the lower velocity and
more infrequent tasks at large, higher
volume operations,” he says.
Shared autonomy
Third Wave Automation is another pro-
vider of autonomous lift truck solutions
that believes in the value of mixed-mode
autonomous trucks, supporting remote
monitoring and full remote operation of
its trucks. Matt Willis, head of product
for Third Wave Automation, calls it a
“multi-mode” approach to autonomous
lift trucks under what Third Wave calls
its “shared autonomy” concept.
Under this approach, Willis explains,
the autonomous lift trucks can operate
in autonomous mode nearly all the time,
though using Third Wave’s autonomy
platform, a human located in the DC
could oversee many trucks and inter-
vene if an autonomous lift truck comes
up against an unexpected situation. In
busy, dynamic warehouses, adds Willis,
the unexpected is to be expected, so
autonomous platforms should be ready
to cope with that reality.
“For example, what should be done
when there’s already a pallet in a loca-
tion the autonomous truck is supposed
to be placing another pallet into?” Wil-
lis says. “Manual operators are good
at resolving issues like this, so our
approach is to put a human in the loop
so that if one of our autonomous fork-
mmh.com
 The Vecna CPJ is an autonomous pallet jack developed in partnership
with Big Joe, aimed at handling load-moving tasks where a human
typically determines when a task should be initiated. Big Joe’s version
of this user-directed pallet mover is nicknamed “BUD.”

lifts comes up against a situation where
there is not a clear answer to, the
operator can very quickly step in and
provide guidance, and over time, the
autonomy system learns from that.”
For its first autonomous lift truck, a
reach truck, Third Wave Automation part-
nered with Clark Material Handling, using
one of their reach trucks as a foundation.
Willis says that in most cases, the person
managing the autonomous fleet would be
in the same building as the trucks, but in
an office setting.
“We believe that having an experi-
enced operator remotely monitoring the
fleet and managing exceptions as they
occur is the next step in having humans
and machines working together to
complete warehouse tasks,” Willis
says. “You can combine the experience
of your best operators with the capa-
bilities of an autonomous system to
achieve the performance and efficiency
levels you are looking for.”
Third Wave’s autonomous reach truck
can be operated manually, either by
getting on the truck, or with the remote-
control technology, for ad-hoc tasks that
may arise. However, adds Willis, lift truck
autonomy gains maximum benefit by
having one person support the output of
multiple autonomous units.
“In effect, our system gives opera-
tors superpowers,” he says. “One oper-
ator is now able to oversee and operate
multiple trucks at once, which was
just not possible before with manually
operated trucks.”
High density automation
While there is human interaction with
autonomous lift trucks, including hav-
ing workers summon automated lift
trucks with call-box communication,
dual-mode capability in some autono-
mous trucks, and fleet monitoring,
the current trend with pallet moves in
high-density storage areas is toward
full autonomy, with direct integration
to a WMS, says Martin Buena-Franco,
automation products marketing man-
ager for The Raymond Corp.
For these high-density environments,
Raymond offers its Automated Trans-
tacker, as well as its Automated Swing-
Reach trucks. The systems are intended
to be used in fully automated mode,
taking instructions directly from a WMS

mmh.com Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 27

Automation

to achieve maximum efficiency in very

narrow aisle, high-density storage areas,
explains Buena-Franco.
The Automated Transtacker, while in
Autonomous reach
trucks can now the aisles, can draw power from an electri-
pick and place from cal power mechanism on a rail. This trans-
elevated rack positions
lates into 20% or more pallet moves per
using sensing and
autonomy platforms. day, Buena-Franco adds. The Automated
Swing Reach truck can autonomously
move from aisle to aisle, rather than need-
ing human assistance.
“The trend in warehousing and stor-
age is to go higher, and also to have
narrower aisles to achieve greater
density and space efficiency,” says
Buena-Franco. “When you combine
this with other industry pressures and
advances in autonomous technology and
software, the needle has been moving
more toward full autonomy from the
manufacturing or distribution center
floor into very narrow aisle storage ware-
houses.”
The suitability of autonomous lift
trucks depends on circumstances like
order volume and how difficult it is for
a site to find operators, says Buena-
Franco. However, he adds, many two-
shift or three-shift operations with very
narrow aisle layouts and higher clear
heights can benefit from fully autono-
mous trucks that can offer efficiency
and accuracy gains comparable to more
costly systems for automated pallet
storage and retrieval.
Autonomous lift trucks designed for
very narrow aisle environments, adds
Buena-Franco, are best deployed inte-
grated with a WMS. This allows for the
truck to receive work orders directly
from the WMS and keeps physical
inventory in sync. Work orders can also
be batched to further reduce travel and
time for autonomous execution. “The
bottom line is that a fully integrated
system can potentially optimize the
operation,” says Buena-Franco. •

28 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

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Automation

Real benefits
with simulation
Warehouses and fulfillment centers are increasingly
automated, asset-intensive operations with multiple
types of automation systems and robotics that need to
work together to hit throughput goals. Consulting and
assessments can identify likely solutions, but to get a
solid prediction of what integrated systems can achieve,
digital models and simulation are being widely used.

BY ROBERTO MICHEL, SENIOR EDITOR

O
ne of the best ways to know the rates you can achieve with warehouse auto-
mation is to mimic it first, in the digital world, using simulation.
Traditional methods of devising solutions, like on-site assessments by
consultants, or visits to similar facilities and systems run by peers, remain
Simulation is used by Honeywell in
important to identifying automation solutions, but simulation has emerged as a digital
developing its robotics solutions to model
means of modeling—and predicting—the performance of systems before they’re fully and test the rate a system can achieve.
configured and installed.
It’s all done with software, following the concept of creating a “digital twin” tions to automation systems planned for
of an operation and its proposed systems, and using that model to test variables a site. What’s more, it can predict how
and “what-if” scenarios. Use of simulation by warehouse automation vendors, multiple systems will work together,
integrators and specialized consultants isn’t new, but it’s growing as warehouses given end-user SKU and order volume
become more automated, and user companies seek to combine multiple types of data, to identify bottlenecks and arrive
automation to hit throughput targets while minimizing labor needs. at the best balance between cost of
Last year, research firm Interact Analysis predicted that e-commerce growth is the systems, and their ability to handle
driving the need to bring 28,500 new warehouses into service globally by 2025, spikes in demand.
while industrial real estate firm CBRE predicted that, in the United States alone, These capabilities cut right to the
there’s a need for 330 million square feet of additional DC space by 2025. That heart of end user concerns about
out-sized need for warehousing only adds to the importance of understanding effectiveness of solutions, says Ken-
what simulation can do, not just to create spiffy graphics that show material flow, neth Hayer, vice president of customer
but to use simulation models to pinpoint how systems should be configured, and solutions with Swisslog, which has long
importantly, how they’ll react to swings in demand. used simulation as a tool in refining its
“One of the biggest questions that executives want to know is what will the automation solutions. “[Simulation]
capacity, the throughput, of this building and its systems will be,” says Richard is really a tool to optimize a proposed
Schrade, co-founder and president of Automation Intelligence, a simulation consult- design, to find where the bottlenecks are,
ing firm. “Simulation provides objective answers to questions about the performance and address those,” says Hayer. “You will
of proposed systems, because you are getting a 3D digital representation of what is really understand the behavior of inte-
going to happen in your eventual facility.” grated system much better when you do
Simulation software, once a model of a to-be system if fully created, can be used simulation.”
to test many variables, such as adding more hardware like robots or picker worksta- Simulation software has deliv-

30 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

ered value across many industries for
decades, but it’s becoming more impor-
tant in sectors like warehousing, which
are becoming more automated, adds
Tyler Phillips, global Emulate3D busi-
ness development manager at Rockwell
Automation.
“If you are creating an automated
warehouse, and it doesn’t meet capacity
and performance requirements, that’s a
huge problem, because it’s costly to fix,
as opposed to a manual operation, where
Creating simulation models takes deep expertise, but once created, a data-driven
you could likely just throw some more model can test the performance impact of adjusting different variables, like adding
people at the problem. Using a tool like more storage locations, AGVs or demand-side factors like higher order volume.
Emulate3D to validate in advance that
the systems being looked at will meet the
prescribed requirements is extraordinarily
valuable because it offsets an immense
amount of risk and cost,” Phillips says.

Power of the model

Simulation modeling of proposed or
would-be automated materials handling
systems is often carried out by ware-
house automation OEMs or a warehouse
integrator, but not always. Automation
IO, for example, carries out most of its
simulation projects directly for end-user
companies, using software from Emu-
late3D, which has been part of Rockwell
Automation since Rockwell acquired
the company in early 2019. Other well-
known simulation software vendors
include AutoMod, FlexSIM and Simio.
But it takes specialized skills to use
such software to build complex models
and make the most of its scenario-test-
ing capabilities, says Jeremy Tejeda, vice
president of simulation technology and
services for KPI Integrated Solutions, a
warehouse integrator. It’s not like Excel,
where many people in operations know
how to use it on their own for simple
calculations, because it takes a blend
of industrial engineering know how and
expertise in use of simulation to model
complex, integrated systems. Some
large companies may have some internal
With simulation, end-user organizations not only can visualize how to-be automation
and material flows will look, the data behind the software and running the models
predict the performance of systems before they are installed.
simulation experts, but most companies needs to be loaded correctly with data
need to turn to automation partners on processing times and speeds for the
or simulation experts,” he says. “It’s a systems being proposed, as well as order
pretty niche skill set.” profile data from the end-user organi-
Some simulation projects are more zation, to get the model to accurately
limited to see if small changes to the mimic how the planned system will
current state of a warehouse can deliver perform. Simulation engineers gather
more throughput, says Tejeda, such as the data, make sure it’s clean, and load
simulating the impact of a change in slot- it into the model, but Tejada says the
ting. For bigger greenfield or brownfield effort is worth it because when you
projects, a full simulation model of the have a data-driven model, it’s possible to
proposed solution can help determine the quickly test scenarios by feeding in dif-
ideal configuration of the system, such ferent data.
as how many goods-to-picker worksta- “We’re building a model of a system
tions are needed for a system, based on and literally running things time forward
expected order volume and product mix. in a digital environment, and watching
To work well, the simulation model how well that system runs after we’ve

mmh.com Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 31

Automation
mimicked all the rules and logic and data
that the system will have,” Tejeda says.
Full simulations typically begin with a
physical layout of the planned system or
integrated solution, with that layout act-
ing as a starting point for the model and
for scenario testing, says Hayer. The vari-
ables that can be tested in simulation are
many, he explains, from equipment con-
figuration factors like number cranes or
carriers in an automated storage system
to inventory flow issues like how much
buffer stock to position upstream of a
new system, to business variables like
order volume, or how many shifts will
be run. A simulation model can also test
the impact of running a system focus-
ing on induction and replenishment for
one shift, followed by two or three shifts
focused on picking, to see if that raises
throughput.
Simulation models are only as good
as the data fed into them, which is
where consultants will work with clients
to come up with likely order volumes
to be processed, both when it goes live,
but also what they expect volume to be
like in the future. “We’ll typically try-
ing several different order profiles from
the customer, and run those through to
ensure the design is robust,” says Tejeda.
With multiple automation technolo-
gies going into some projects, simulation
can spot issues like traffic congestion or
unexpectedly long queue times for equip-
ment like mobile robots or automatic
guided vehicles (AGVs). “We might have
a good feeling about each of them inde-
pendently, but from a system standpoint,
simulation can help figure out how they
work together,” Tejeda says.
For Automation IO’s clients, says
Schrade, the simulation project can be
used to validate how much automation
spend is truly needed to hit a target
performance rate while avoiding low
utilization. The proverbial sweet spot for
elements like the number of robots or
32 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
AGVs needed, or the number of cranes
or carriers in an automated storage solu-
tion, can be pinpointed with simulation,
says Schrade. “You always are going to
find some change to the design,” he says.
“You are going to be taking some ele-
ments away, or maybe adding something,
to get a really clean and validated design.”
Simulation vs. emulation
A close cousin to simulation is emula-
tion, which has the specific aim of test-
ing automation controls and messaging
prior to installation of the systems.
Emulation software communicates with
programmable logic controllers (PLCs)
or other controls to test these functions
virtually, which reduces on-site commis-
sioning time and cost, says Phillips.
“Instead of being a simulation of the
system … with emulation, we are creat-
ing, accurate, high-fidelity representa-
tions of all the hardware that’s in the
system, and then we take that emulation
model and we connect it to the PLCs
that actually run the system and let the
PLCs run the system instead of some
simulation launch,” Phillips says.
The end game for emulation is to do
much of the controls testing virtually,
Simulation typically
involves a physical
layout as a starting
point, but its real
power comes from
running the model to
test the performance
impact of scenarios,
like adding a shift.
rather than at the hectic tail end of a
project. “Being able to take that controls
testing off the critical path at the final
stages of a project, and move it up into
an earlier phase of the project, is impor-
tant,” says Phillips.
Additionally, says Phillips, emulation
doesn’t disrupt operations, or lead to
wasted energy or consumption of raw
materials that might be involved in on-
site controls testing.
Getting robotics right
Simulation and emulation software
can be thought of as a means of hav-
ing greater confidence in the expected
performance of a solution, and greater
speed in deploying systems, especially
when emulation is also leveraged, says
Thomas Evans, chief robotics technol-
ogy officer for Honeywell.
“One of the challenges we have as
a solution provider is customers com-
ing to us, and saying, ‘I need to hit this
rate with this robotic solution to make
my return on investment (ROI). That is
where we will use simulation, before we
go down a dedicated development path,
given specific factors around product
dimension and variation in the product
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Automation
mix, to know with a high degree of con-
fidence that we can meet that needed
rate. And that is where part of the value
of simulation comes into play—in bring-
ing confidence during that early ideation
phase,” Evans says.
Honeywell uses its own simulation
software, known as Honeywell eSim,
in its simulation work, leveraging a
library of models it has created. When
possible, these pre-existing models are
used to speed up new projects for cus-
tomers, though each project has unique
product characteristics and volumes
to test, and existing automation fac-
tors that need to be incorporated into a
simulation, says Thomas.
Once the modeling is established,
the simulation software can be used
to quickly test what-if scenarios. With
robotic piece picking simulation, says
Thomas, the software can examine the
impact on the piece picking rate if the
products coming into the cell are singu-
lated versus a more jumbled presenta-
tion, or the impact on rates if the system,
due to seasonality or other demand pat-
terns, will need to process a higher per-
centage of heavier items, or fragile items,
which could slow a robotic system’s rate.
“It gives us more confidence as to
what the performance will be, and what
we should do with the build and design
and development to meet that perfor-
mance rate,” concludes Thomas.
Thomas says Honeywell uses simu-
lation in developing new warehouse
robotics solutions, as well as applying
simulation to specific customer projects.
All this work builds up a collection of
useful models that can help Honeywell’s
customers visualize the performance of
a solution they are considering.
“These models we’ve created enable
more in-depth conversations with our
customers. They can now picture what
is going to be happening in their opera-
tion, and we can look at the impact of
34 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
changes, or what happens with a dif-
ferent [customer] product set, and that
leads to a deeper understanding when
working with customers,” says Thomas.
Honeywell will also use emula-
tion to test how a solution will run
on the PLCs and controls for the
automation. Emulation will digitally
check the messaging and interfaces to
subsystems, in the virtual world, says
Thomas, which cuts implementation
time versus doing all the testing on-
site after the hardware is installed. In
developing its robotic solutions,
Honeywell also uses digital or “syn-
thetic data” that digitally represents
products that need handling, which
further speeds solutions deployment,
says Thomas, versus waiting to do all the
testing with actual product items and
vision on site in the physical world.
“Simulation is something that is
helping us shorten the product develop-
ment cycle, and is helping us have more
accuracy in what we’re doing with proto-
typing. With simulation and emulation,
we can shorten the time to benefit from
solutions, and have a high degree of
confidence that when a solution is put
in place, it’s going to perform, and it’s
going to mesh with your operations.”
Bridge to operations
Simulation models, once created, can be
used periodically by people in end-user
organizations to test new scenarios or
examine how to best run systems given
a new demand profile. According to
Swisslog’s Hayer, only about 10% of cus-
tomers that Swisslog creates simulations
for will use the models later for opera-
tional decision support. “Some custom-
ers do want to use it as an operational
tool, because systems are dynamic and
depending order structure or order pro-
files, the system will behave differently
and perform differently,” Hayer says.
Schrade says that among Automa-
tion IO’s clients, it’s common to use
the model on an ongoing basis, perhaps
to test how a warehouse’s systems
will function during seasonal demand
events. “Someone in operations may
want to run a new order profile the day
before or prior to that expected spike in
demand and see where there might be
pinch points in the system,” he says.
One new vendor that is applying digital
twin and simulation technology within a
solution aimed at operations is Synkrato.
The startup’s Cloud logistics software has
five core components: digital twin, adap-
tive slotting, a mobile app builder, Inter-
net-of-Things (IoT) tracking, and digital
labeling. Amin Sikander, president of Syn-
krato, says the software’s use of simulation
and the digital twin concept ties directly
into slotting, to arrive at more effective
slotting that adapts to changing demand
and supply data coming from enterprise
resource planning (ERP) systems.
“Our use of digital twin is really
focused on smart logistics execution,”
Sikander says. “It’s not meant to be a
one-time simulation.”
Using Synkrato’s software, companies
can build 3D renderings of their facili-
ties, as well as tie into changing demand
and supply signals from ERP, and with
that digital twin, adjust slotting as
needed and see the impact.
A key benefit of the software, adds
Sikander, is to easily adapt slotting to
reduce travel times by shortening pick
paths. The software can also be used
to determine what impact the deploy-
ment of a new conveyor, or a mobile
robot system, or some additional rack
for fast-moving inventory, will have
in terms of travel time reduction and
picking efficiencies.
“Those are the types of problems we
are trying to solve,” says Sikander. “Our
solution is meant to actively adapt your
warehouse to changing demand and sup-
ply patterns to make it more efficient.” •
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Automation

The keys to
DOM
success
Distributed order management software centers
on fulfillment rules and order routing logic, but
DOM can also expose promise dates and shipping
options with integration to front end e-commerce
systems. Understanding the power of DOM’s
enterprise view of inventory, its integration
mechanisms and its dynamic rules engines are
part of effective distributed order fulfillment.

W
BY ROBERTO MICHEL, SENIOR EDITOR

ant to get items shipped to customers faster from the warehouse execute pick, pack, ship tasks at stores
or store with the inventory? Want to show online customers what or to prepare buy online, pick up in
the actual shipping cost will be as they shop? And, do you want store (BOPIS) orders.
to do all that without interrupting inventory availability for other “Order management solutions
channels like store replenishment for your DC or walk-in traffic in your stores? (OMS) or DOM have a lot of capabili-
The means of achieving these objectives is wrapped up in a category of ties, but there’s quite a bit of change
software known as distributed order management (DOM). These solutions, management involved in getting the
also known as order management system (OMS) solutions or enterprise order most from these systems,” says David
management, can do all these things, but fully leveraging DOM requires a Mascitto, retail and e-commerce sup-
deeper understanding of how it manages fulfillment using order routing logic, ply chain product marketing manager
as well as real-time integration to multiple types of systems. What’s more, for Tecsys, which offers DOM from
DOM can be used to address complexity for business-to-business fulfillment its 2018 acquisition of OrderDynam-
scenarios, not just for consumer-facing omnichannel selling. ics. “But the benefits are worth it
Multiple factors ensure DOM deployments work well. Every warehouse or because it’s these order management
“node” configured in the system benefits from some type of site-level execu- capabilities that will enable you to
tion system to ensure inventory accuracy and update the DOM on event get your orders to your customers
and transactions. Companies need to think strategically about which nodes faster, cheaper and more sustainably,
will make up their network and the rules that will govern how to “route” or while using all the inventory available
allocate orders across these nodes. You also need sufficient labor capacity to to you.”

36 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

DOM’s core functions
DOM functionality can vary by vendor,
but centers on both inventory visibility
and the system’s order routing logic.
Think of DOM as a layer of software
that sits over systems like warehouse
management systems (WMS) used in
DCs or retail store systems, or WMS
solutions from third-party logistics pro-
viders or drop shippers. It’s constantly
in the know on inventory positions,
interacting in real time with e-com-
merce software, or other systems that
take customer orders, to relay reliable
delivery promise dates and costs. At the
heart of DOM functionality, however, is
a rules engine that governs order routing
decisions, says Dan Gilmore, chief mar-
keting officer for Softeon.
mmh.com
Understanding how to leverage
these configurable rules engines will
help you get the most from the soft-
ware, Gilmore adds, since the engine
is what works in the background to
allocate orders to inventory at fulfill-
ment nodes, while automatically con-
sidering multiple factors like cost to
ship, or other concerns like margin on
an item or capacity to carry out fulfill-
ment tasks.
“That rules engine is going to opti-
mally determine what is the best sourc-
ing location to use to generate the least
cost transportation spend, while meet-
ing customer requirements and service-
level commitments and while consider-
ing network capacities and constraints,”
explains Gilmore.
Special Digital Issue: Automation
Integration counts
Integration to inventory data and trans-
actions has always been part of DOM,
but now vendors are looking to expose
some fulfillment information from DOM
directly into front-end e-commerce plat-
forms before purchases are made, says
Reyaz Mohamed, a vice president with
Blue Yonder.
Here DOM acts as a real-time service
exposed within the e-commerce store-
front or marketplace so shoppers can see
actual order “get by” dates and accurate
shipping costs or BOPIS promises before
they make a purchase, notes Mohamed.
“This information—the order promise
date, that crucial get-by information—is
sitting within the DOM solution and
enhances that customer front-end jour-
| October 2022 37
 Automation

DOM microservices to enable real-time promising

OMNICHANNEL ENGAGEMENT OMNICHANNEL EXECUTION

Shopping Order orchestration Order fulfillment

Shop and Customer
click

Inventory Pre-order Order Order Returns Store and Last mile

ATP commitments sourcing services DC fulfillment

ML / AI FOUNDATION

Markdown Stockout Dynamic Predictive

predictions predictions safety stock delivery dates

Source: Blue Yonder

By exposing DOM insights as “microservices” to e-commerce platforms, DOM solutions can improve the customer experience.

ney,” explains Mohamed.
For this trick to work, Mohamed
adds, the DOM solution exposes its
routing decisions and options to e-com-
merce software on a real-time basis.
Some order management solutions can
do this today, Mohamed adds, making
DOM less of a back-end system to one
that injects its capabilities straight into
the customer experience.
“In effect, DOM is moving more into
the front end of e-commerce, rather
than being more of purely back-end
system,” Mohamed says. “As compa-
nies seek to add more nodes, especially
when it comes to the many stores a
company may want to use as fulfillment
nodes, which became more of a focus
in the recent past due to e-commerce
demand during Covid, you need an
order management system that can han-
dle much more scale and volume. Ten
years ago, a DOM might tie into and
manage inventory visibility for maybe
five to 10 warehouses that acted as the
nodes, but now the requirement may
be to tie into hundreds of nodes.”
Another challenge is making stores
a bit more like warehouses in terms
of inventory accuracy and the ability
to execute on order fulfillment pro-
cesses. While DCs have a long his-
tory of using WMS to control inven-
tory and guide associates through
effective pick, pack and ship pro-
cesses using mobile devices, stores
can lack these capabilities.
That makes it important to first con-
duct a proper network strategy to deter-
mine which stores in which regions will
act as fulfillment nodes with the DOM
rollout. A DOM’s rules engine can help
by doing things like setting limits on
how much a smaller store can handle
as a node within DOM.
“It’s absolutely critical to have an
accurate view of what your stores are
able to ship or pick for store pick up, so
the DOM can make optimal sourcing
decisions,” says Mohamed. “Oftentimes,
having the inventory isn’t enough, you
need the workforce capacity, too.”
For DOM to work well, Mohamed
adds, the DOM needs proven integra-
tion capabilities, including to WMS and
all the inventory transactions and order
shipment events coming from a WMS,
as well as ties into store-level systems
that manage inventory, and of course,
to e-commerce software from vendors
like Shopify, Big Commerce, Magento,
Salesforce, and others, as well as to any
parcel shipping software that might be
used to estimate shipping cost. Integra-
tion also ideally needs to be real-time
integration based on application pro-
gramming interfaces (APIs) rather than
batch updates, adds Mohamed.
Inventory visibility and allocation
logic are at the heart of DOM and OMS
solutions, agrees Chris Deck, founder
and CEO of Deck Commerce. Besides
running its allocation or routing logic, a
DOM solution needs to push an accu-
rate available inventory view into each

38 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

e-commerce selling platform or channel,
which is especially important to direct-
to-consumer (DTC) brands, says Deck.
“Before you even get to the alloca-
tion [function], the key is exposing
that inventory view to upstream selling
platforms in the most efficient man-
ner, to maximize your ability to turn the
inventory, while minimizing your risk of
overselling and having to do order can-
cellations,” Deck explains.
For example, Deck says, sellers
on eBay seek to maintain a perfect
seller record, which can be negatively
impacted if a DTC brand’s OMS can-
not send an accurate inventory position
up to eBay. DOM solutions for DTC
brands need to be adept at quickly
orchestrating allocations and providing
updated inventory availability to each
e-commerce channel to ensure a posi-
tive customer experience.
“The order management solution has
to be able to manage those allocations to
provide an accurate, available-to-sell pic-
ture in as close to real-time as possible,”
says Deck.
DOM integration often reaches out
to multiple systems, even at the same
company. For example, Browns Shoes, a
user of Tecsys’s DOM solution, tied five
different retail systems into the solution
to achieve an enterprise-wide view of
inventory at its stores and its DC and to
create a single unified commerce solu-
tion for filling orders.
The DOM provides an order consoli-
dation capability from this unified view
of inventory. Browns Shoes reduced the
overall order lead time by 13% in the first
month with the system; they compressed
the order-to-fulfillment cycle time to as
low as 15 minutes, while ensuring a 99.5%
level of fulfillment and order accuracy.
Integration is crucial to DOM suc-
cess, Gilmore agrees, in that inevitably
mmh.com
DOM’s scope & information flows
Distributed
order
management
SALES (DOM) FULFILLMENT
CHANNELS system CHANNELS
• Physical stores • Physical stores
• Kiosks • Kiosks
• Call centers • Distribution centers
• Online stores • 3PL
• Apps • Warehouses
• Marketplaces • Dropshippers
• Affiliate sites RETURNS CHANNELS
• Physical stores
• Fulfillment centers
• 3PL
• Warehouses
• Dropshippers
Source: Deck Commerce
DOM systems sync inventory, transaction and fulfillment data across channels.
there are many systems to tie into, the business rules,” says Gilmore.
including systems used by third-party Initially, a DOM deployment can
logistics providers (3PL). “To be suc- be kept fairly simple in terms of rules
cessful at DOM, as the solution pro- configuration, looking mainly at factors
vider, you need to be an integration like shipping cost from each node, but
specialist,” says Gilmore. you can add further rules as you gain
experience. “A lot of times retailers will
The role of rules start with a region and start to do fulfill-
Understanding how to leverage the rules ment from a cluster of nodes, get some
engine in DOM is key to success with learnings, and then adapt what they want
projects, adds Gilmore, who calls the their policies to be,” says Gilmore.
dynamic rules engine function a “foun- For example, the DOM’s rules engine
dational” element of DOM. A good rules could be used to set an upper limit on
engine allows a DOM to instantly weigh how many orders a store can pick, pack
different factors to come up with the and ship. If a store gets very busy with
optimal routing decision. shoppers, and starts to fall behind on fill-
The rules engine should be able to ing online orders, the DOM could route
address factors like shipping cost and additional orders to a different store serv-
geographic distance, speed of delivery or ing as a node for the region.
other issues like how many ship-from- “All these decisions just happen auto-
store orders a single store can realisti- matically,” Gilmore says. “That is what
cally handle in a day. “If you can define a is so wonderful about this technology—
rule in English, you can define it in our once you configure the rules, very little
DOM’s rule engine, so there is a tremen- human intervention is involved.”
dous amount of flexibility in setting up Softeon’s DOM solution also can
Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 39
 Automation

perform simulations to test scenarios like

adding more stores or warehouses to the
fulfillment network, or adjusting inven-
tory policies around how much inventory
to keep at a store, and then running a
block of order data through the software.
“You can run that data through the DOM
and see how things actually play out, in
terms of impact on logistics cost, or what
the impact is on improving service lev-
els,” says Gilmore.
DOM’s ability to flexibly set rules over
how to fulfill demand with inventory sit-
ting across nodes can be useful to busi-
ness-to-business (B2B) scenarios, not
just figuring out how to best get goods to
online consumers, adds Gilmore.
For example, Sears Home Services
uses Softeon’s DOM and WMS to man-
age repair parts inventory and fulfillment
in a multi-echelon network, including
parts held in master DCs down to parts
held in an individual technician’s van, as
well as reverse logistics to optimize the
process of returning parts for restocking,
scrapping or repair.
“It’s using DOM’s integration capabili-
ties and dynamic rules engine to manage
similar variables regarding inventory
availability and issues like logistics costs,
but just in a B2B context,” says Gilmore.
Business agility
Companies that invested in DOM before
the pandemic were in a better position
to quickly pivot to using stores as fulfill-
ment nodes, says Amy Tennent, a senior
director of product management at Man-
hattan Associates.
For example, Kendra Scott, an Aus-
tin, Texas-based jewelry retailer was
already using Manhattan’s OMS to
facilitate DOM from DCs when the
pandemic hit. Kendra Scott’s retail
stores shut to in-person shopping at one
point during Covid, and its main DC
Some DOM solutions are able to consider how many orders can be processed per day
from stores.
was reduced to minimum operations
due to safety measures.
Kendra Scott realized it should look
at using stores to fill e-commerce orders,
explains Tennent, and within one busi-
ness day had configured Manhattan’s
Store Order Fulfillment solution, along
with the OMS logic on routing decisions,
and within six business days was able
to begin leveraging some stores to fulfill
e-commerce orders. Kendra Scott and
Manhattan quickly collaborated on curb-
side pickup functionality using the OMS
and store solutions.
“If you don’t have an order manage-
ment solution in place already, this
ability to quickly turn on that type of
ship-from-store functionality is harder
to achieve because it’s a bigger project.
When you have an order management
solution that is flexible and configu-
rable, you have the ability to adapt your
fulfillment processes and strategy very
quickly,” Tennent says.
While WMS solutions are widely used
in large DCs, advanced WMS is seen
as out of place in a store environment.
Enterprises leveraging stores as fulfill-
ment nodes are better off with purpose-
built fulfillment solutions for the store
environment, enabling optimized picking
strategies, dynamic prioritization, notifi-
cations and alerting, says Tennent.
DOM order routing algorithms enable
retailers to more profitability leverage
store inventory by helping them move
inventory they want to move, like e-com-
merce returns in resaleable condition or
store inventory that is due for a big price
markdown, says Tennent.
DOM also can aid retailers in meet-
ing customer expectations by integrat-
ing with WMS solutions and stores in
real-time, adds Tennent, so if a customer
decides to add an item to an order just
after placing it, or canceling an item, or
changing the ship to data, the change
can be facilitated without frustrating cus-
tomers by saying the order already has
been sent to the warehouse. •

40 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

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Automation

WANT BIG GAINS?

Automate the ins and
outs with ATLS
Whether it’s trying to efficiently load or unload full pallets,
or deal with the burdens of manual case loading and
unloading, inbound and outbound docks are places where
operations can make significant gains with automation,
as well as safety and reducing product damage.
BY ROBERTO MICHEL, SENIOR EDITOR
T
he pressures on shipping and
receiving processes today are
immense. Labor is scarce and dif-
ficult to retain. Order volumes are high.
Supply shortages are forcing some com-
panies to buy as much inventory when
they can, causing further pressure on
inbound workflows.
Those are the problems, but there is a
bright side: The systems for automating
unloading and loading processes are pro-
gressing rapidly, especially when it comes
to the use of intelligent robotics. More
established are various types of auto-
mated trailer loading systems (ATLS)
that rapidly load a whole trailer full of
pallets in a one-shot movement, or auto-
matic guided vehicles (AGVs) tailored
for loading and unloading processes.
The newer technologies that leverage
artificial intelligence (AI) and articulat-
ing arms promise to do something new:
automate the loading and unloading of
highly variable cartons and cases into
tidy, well-organized shipments that make

While many ATLS solutions make use

of modified trailers, some do not, such
as this design which uses a “skate”
mechanism to move and ease loads
onto a standard trailer floor.

42 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

good use of a trailer’s cubic space. In
the past, that task was often left to the
human workforce and its strong backs,
perhaps with the help of telescoping,
powered conveyor.
Think of loading and unloading solu-
tions as varied and involving multiple
technologies, rather than being neces-
sarily about AI-driven robotics. The
challenges are hefty, but the automation
choices are growing, too.
Enter the robots
The robotic approach grabbed plenty of
attention earlier this year when DHL
Supply Chain, a major 3PL that is part of
Deutsche Post DHL Group, announced
with robotics vendor Boston Dynamics
that it would roll out a mobile manipula-
tion robot from Boston Dynamics called
Stretch to automate item unloading tasks
across multiple facilities to the tune of a
$15 million investment.
The project involved close collabora-
tion over the past few years as Stretch
was being developed and tested. Boston
mmh.com
Dynamics will deliver a fleet of Stretch
robots to multiple DHL warehouses
throughout North America over the
next three years. The robot will tackle
several box-moving tasks in the ware-
house, beginning with truck unloading at
select DHL facilities. Following the first
deployment, the multi-purpose robot
may handle additional tasks.
“At DHL Supply Chain, we are com-
mitted to continuous innovation and
digital transformation to optimize the
end-to-end supply chain,” Sally Miller,
CIO of DHL Supply Chain North
America, stated when the collaboration
was announced. “Investing in warehouse
automation plays an important role in
increasing operational efficiency and
improving service for our customers.
The Stretch robot addresses complex
industry challenges through flexible auto-
mation, which we’ll be able to replicate
and scale regionally and globally.”
Stretch moves on a compact, omni-
directional mobile base and features a
lightweight arm as well as a gripper with
Special Digital Issue: Automation
Honeywell is leveraging the AI and
vision technology that went into a
robotic depalletizer solution for its
articulated arm solution that can
load and unload cases.
advanced sensing and controls to handle a
large variety of box types and sizes. Stretch
is touted as being able to autonomously
handle complex situations like disordered
stacking configurations and recovering
fallen boxes.
Stretch moves one box at a time and
can handle boxes weighing up to 50
pounds at a rate of up to 800 cases per
hour, depending on trailer and box con-
figuration, according to Kevin Blankespoor,
senior vice president of warehouse robotics
at Boston Dynamics.
Industry and supply chain pressures,
along with robotics advancements, make
it a good time to consider robotics for
tough tasks like unloading smaller items,
Blankespoor says. “The pandemic has cre-
ated massive supply chain issues all over
the globe, disrupting and delaying the
movement of goods in ports, warehouses
| October 2022 43
 Automation

and distribution centers,” he says. “Stretch

can help logistics companies meet surging
demand and keep a steady volume of goods
moving through facilities.”
A benefit of automating the unload-
ing of cartons with robotics, Blankespoor
contends, is that operations can use the
labor savings to reassign workers to other
tasks. “We designed Stretch to automate
the toughest part of these warehouse jobs,
which keeps employees safer and frees
them up to perform more strategic and
valuable work,” Blenkespoor says. “We
intentionally design our robots so they can
be easily operated by almost anyone, with-
out the need for a specialized degree. We
envision today’s box movers being tomor-
row’s robot operators, capable of manag-
ing fleets of robots in warehouses, plants
and other industrial environments.”
Other vendors are involved in apply-
ing AI-based robotics to unloading and
loading tasks. Honeywell Intelligrated
has been working on robotic, AI-based
solutions for trailer unloading for sev-
eral years, having introduced a solution
in 2019 called its general merchandise
robotic unloader.
That system uses a wide section of
powered conveyor and a wide row of
end effectors to grasp and automatically
unload packages in bulk fashion onto its
conveyor. That earlier solution is no longer
for commercial sale, but that technology
led to Honeywell developing a different
AGVs for automated trailer loading, or ATL AGVs, have some special features to suit the
autonomous robotic solution for truck
task of loading trailers.
unloading and loading that uses an articu-
lated arm for case handling, says Thomas cases, and that Honeywell is already in says, is to tap into AI and vision R&D for
Evans, chief technology officer for Honey- the “execution” phase of applying the multiple solutions—first with the depal-
well Robotics. vision and AI technology that went into letizer robot and now with the updated
Going forward, the articulated arm its Smart Flexible Depalletizer solution articulating arm that automates the load-
solution will use the AI and vision system to the articulating arm solution for load ing and unloading of cases. Both solu-
research and development that Hon- and unload tasks. The solution will look tions, he says, use AI and vision technol-
eywell undertook when it introduced similar to the depalletizer robot, though ogy building blocks to flexibly adapt to
its Smart Flexible Depalletizer solution attached at the end of stretch of powered different case sizes and variability in the
last year. Evans says the articulating conveyor that extends into trailers. structure of loads.
robotic arm system can load and unload The overall aim for Honeywell, Evans “What I’m doing with the custom-

44 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

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Evolve. Repeat.

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 Automation

ATLS solutions have a sweet spot with shorter shuttle runs, where the time reduction versus loading a trailer with lift trucks allows the
operation to turn more trailer loads per shift.

ers that have our loading and unloading
articulated arm, I’m encouraging them to
look at our Smart Flexible Depalletizer,
and its vision capabilities and its intelli-
gence in dealing with variability, and the
advanced articulation capabilities of that
arm,’” Evans says.
In practice, Evans explains, depallet-
izing and unloading and loading applica-
tions all call for a system adept at dealing
with variability. With depalletizing, the
AI and vision for the robot needs to
know how to depalletize a single-SKU
pallet load, and then a mixed-SKU pallet,
in any sequence.
Similarly, a case loading and unload-
ing robotic arm needs to know how to
load a highly structured trailer, but the
next one may be more loose loaded, or
need a different pattern.
“Our vision system, and the AI and
intelligence we’ve developed, is the key
to be able to do that consistently from
trailer to trailer, and provide the needed
flexibility, at an acceptable rate for the
customer to get a return on their invest-
ment,” says Evans.
A key benefit of using core AI and
vision building blocks for warehouse
robotics, says Evans, is to make solu-
tions quicker to deploy, since 80% of the
capabilities are extensively modeled and
tested before a system gets installed.
“The process we’ve taken on is
to build 80% under a generalized
approach that is non-customer spe-
cific,” Evans says. “With this approach,
when we get to the customer site,
that deployment and commissioning
phase should not need to extend much
beyond what you have with more tradi-
tional materials handling solutions.”
Importantly, says Evans, the articulat-
ing arm loading and unloading solution
has an end-effector design that can grasp
and handle two or three cases at a time,
rather than one, much like the smart
depalletizer robot can grasp and manipu-
late multiple cases in one movement.
“The articulated arm is capable of pick-
ing three cases at a time and loading three
cases at a time, or picking and unloading
three cases at a time, which is where we
get rates reaching up to 900 to 1,000
picks per hour, which allows a solution
like this to really compete with the speed
of a manual process,” says Evans.
ATLS efficiencies
Automated trailer loading systems
(ATLS) based on digitally controlled
mechanisms involving skates, rollers
or slip chains have been proven for
decades. They are efficient at safely
loading pallets of goods onto trail-
ers, making them popular with food
and beverage companies and other
consumer goods companies that ship
high volumes of unitized goods. Some
systems can also load and unload other
items like tires or paper rolls.
ATLSs carry time and labor savings
advantages versus manually loading trail-
ers with lift trucks, while eliminating the
chance of product or equipment damage

46 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

within the actual loading task, since an
ATLS, once its staging conveyor is fully
loaded, can load a full trailer in two to
three minutes, says Bill Witwer, director
of sales for Loading Automation, which
offers multiple types of ATLSs under a
turnkey approach. “The operator of the
system simply pushes a button, and the
trailer is loaded in about two and half
minutes,” says Witwer.
By contrast, loading a trailer with
manually operated lift trucks can take 20
to 30 minutes, and with trucks going in
and out of the tight confines of a trailer,
there’s a chance for incidents and dam-
age that aren’t possible when an ATLS
automatically loads the trailers in a
one-shot, mechanized movement. Some
clients, Witwer adds, may further auto-
mate by using pallet conveyor or AGVs to
bring loads to the ATLS staging conveyor.
Loading Automation’s custom-
ers include household names such as
Anheuser-Busch, which uses their
automated slip-chain and roller trailer
system to regularly shuttle empty alu-
minum cans and glass bottles from
nearby suppliers to breweries, and
Harley-Davidson, which uses a powered
chain and roller type ATLS for moving
finished motorcycles from a production
plant to a nearby warehouse.
For companies with regular “shuttle
runs” like these, ATLSs speed up ship-
ping and receiving processes, free up lift
truck operators, and reduce the chance
of product damage.
“That time savings is where much of
the justification for these systems come
from, though you also eliminate damage
to loads and equipment, and increase
turnaround times for the operation,” says
Witwer. “You can achieve payback for an
ATLS that is handling 30 trailer loads a
shift, which is pretty typical for a lot of
these high-volume applications we see,
in less than two years.”
mmh.com
AGVs designed to load trailers will sometimes work in concert with end-of-line pallet
conveyance to achieve a fully automated outbound flow of pallet shipments.
While the shuttle run scenario is a
sweet spot for ATLS, they can also bring
payback for longer hauls if the volume
is high enough, adds Witwer. Safety also
is concern for many operations. With
Loading Automation’s systems, the ATLS
is often integrated to dock controls and
trailer restraint systems to ensure a high
level of safety, Witwer adds.
Additionally, while many ATLS
designs do call for a modified trailer and
a fixed staging conveyor area dockside,
some do not, says Witwer. There are
variations, and a consulting and integra-
tion element to putting together the ideal
solution for each operation.
“There isn’t any one solution I try to
promote,” says Witwer. “It depends on
each customer’s application needs, and
what the environment is, in terms of
space and material flow. And, although
there are different ways to automate
loading and unloading, the benefits
are similar, involving time savings,
eliminating the chance for damage,
increased safety, and reducing the
personnel requirement in loading and
receiving, which has become such an
important issue with the labor short-
Special Digital Issue: Automation
ages operations are facing.”
The time savings from ATLSs, com-
pared to loading with human-operated
lift trucks, dramatically compresses load-
ing and unloading cycle times, making
it possible to move more goods with the
same number of trucks, says Jack W.
Smylie, North America sales manager
for Ancra Systems, an ATLS solution
provider. This is a major driver for ATLSs
for shorter shuttle runs, which typically
involve an ATLS with a modified trailer.
With ATLS, not only can the opera-
tion reassign lift truck operators and save
time dock side versus using lift trucks,
the truck drivers and their rigs have wait
times of just a few minutes at the dock,
versus 30 minutes or longer when using
lift trucks to load or unload, says Smylie.
“With a modified trailer system, if
you were using 10 trucks for a shuttle
run operation before automating, you
can cut that down to five trucks pretty
easily,” Smylie says. “It really comes
down to the number of loads you can
turn per hour. If a driver is pulling up
with a modified trailer for one of our
ATLS solutions, the cycle time is very
short, because the trailer loads in three
| October 2022 47
 Automation
minutes instead of 30 minutes or more
depending on how you were loading
the truck previously. Now you are turn-
ing the trucks much faster at each end.
That’s a major decision driver for an
ATLS with a modified trailer.”
Ancra’s customers with ATLS solu-
tions include Lineage Logistics (at
a former Preferred Freezer Services
operation), DB Schenker and Procter
& Gamble. While ATLSs that call for
modified trailers match up well with
shorter shuttle runs with a higher
degree of control over load profiles and
trailers, some ATLSs do not require a
modified trailer, adds Smylie, which
opens up automated loading efficiencies
to more operations. For example, Ancra
offers an ATLS called Skateloader,
developed to automatically load stan-
dard, non-modified trailers.
The Skateloader can work with either
palletized or slip-sheeted goods for out-
bound transport, and it can work with
non-modified trailers. Ancra estimates that
this non-modified trailer ATLS can cut the
overall loading cycle from 30 or 40 minutes
with lift trucks to around 8 minutes, which
allows a single dock door to handle three to
four trailers per hour.
“There are different ATLS approaches
to handle different needs,” says Smylie.
“With a non-modified system like our
Skateloader, whatever standard trailer
pulls up can be loaded, which opens
up the benefits of ATLS to operations
that need to ship one way to multiple
sites or customers.”
It’s fairly common, Smylie adds, for
users of ATLS solutions to also use pallet
conveyors or AGVs to fully automate the
outbound process from palletizing and
wrapping, all the way out to the ATLS
and right into the trailers. “Pallet con-
veyor combined with ATLS brings a high
level of speed and efficiency to the whole
outbound process,” says Smylie.
48 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
Purpose built AGVs
AGVs are another path to automating
loading of trailers with pallets, and in
some cases, unloading. Vendors stress
that AGVs for these tasks may call for
some special ruggedness and naviga-
tion features.
Dematic, which is part of KION
Group, for example, offers an automatic
trailer loading (ATL) and trailer unload-
ing (UTUL) system built to handle
regular driving over rough and uneven
dock plates. A combination of laser and
natural target navigation allows the AGVs
to see into the trailer without modifica-
tions to trailers, docks or facilities. These
AGVs can support various required load-
ing patterns, including mixed-orientation
and pinwheel patterns.
“One of the primary changes for an
ATL AGV compared to standard AGVs is
the increase in the clear height,” explains
Brian Spradlin, vice president of mobile
automation at the KION Group. “This
increased clearance is needed to accom-
modate variations in deck height and
dock ramps. The chassis and drive wheel
configurations are also modified for
robust and reliable performance in these
applications. Other modifications to ATL
AGVs are focused on mitigating differ-
ences in trailer walls and flooring.”
Using AGVs for loading and unloading
is growing given operational pressures
such as labor shortages, says Mark Lon-
gacre, applications engineering manager
for AGV at JBT Corp. “JBT entered the
automated trailer loading market very
early: more than 10 years ago,” he says.
“This market has grown slowly over the
years and is now accelerating quickly,
similar to many automation applications
and markets. The driving factors nearly
always involve reassigning labor to more
value-added processes and minimiz-
ing product and facility damage while
improving safety in the dock area.”
JBT’s ATL is in its third generation.
The ATL AGVs offer larger, softer tires,
tilting masts and dual rear drives for
ease of travel over dock plates and inside
trucks. Two forms of navigation are
used: natural feature navigation, which
is dynamic and adaptable, and “wall fol-
lowing” navigation that uses raw data
from SICK sensors to sense the trailer
walls to ensure it’s in the center of the
trailer. Trailer loading algorithms detect
the trailer’s center and adjust the load
directly on board the vehicle with as
little as a one-inch clearance on all sides.
Longacre explains that JBT’s first ATL
applications tended to be shorter, regular
loads moving from a manufacturing plant
to a nearby DC, and while these con-
tinue to be good applications, ATL AGVs
are now seeing broader appeal.
“We are now automating some distribu-
tion facilities with more pallet variations
and trucks going much farther away,”
Longacre says. “In the beginning we typi-
cally loaded fairly heavy products, where
trailer capacity was weight limited. Now
we can load light product where the tailer
volume is cubed out. We’ve even loaded
unpalletized, slip sheet loads.”
Acute challenges in finding enough
labor, specifically skilled lift truck opera-
tors, is driving stronger interest in ATL
AGVs, though reduced product damage
and worker safety remain important.
“We’ve had customers say they could
justify automation from just dock door
accidents and damage reduction alone,”
Longacre says. “Now more customers
are commenting that they’re moving past
just traditional ROI and payback justifi-
cations. These customers are very con-
cerned with the lack of qualified candi-
dates to run manual fork lifts to load and
unload trailers. They say it’s well beyond
trying to reduce costs, and that their
very survival will be based on automating
these operations.” •
mmh.com
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 Automation

A NEW DAY
for warehousing
& distribution
Customer requirements are evolving. So are distribution
centers and the technologies that support them.

Christopher Jue/Getty Images for Peerless Media Peter Wynn Thompson/Getty Images for Peerless Media Chris Cone/Getty Images for Peerless Media

50 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com


B
BY BOB TREBILCOCK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
usinesses have never been under more
pressure to keep their customers satis-
fied. They’re still contending with the
after shocks of the pandemic, ongoing
labor and supply shortages, and a never-ending
string of disruptions. Those, however, are time
limited and will pass. Other changes, like the
exponential increase in e-commerce sales and
direct-to-consumer deliveries, are permanent.
It all trickles down to the distribution center,
which is handling more individual items than
ever, while having to do it accurately and with
greater speed. The bar has never been higher
for customer expectations. In short: Once taken
for granted—and maybe even ignored—the DC
is now a vital component of a company’s go-to-
market strategy.
“The last four or five years for supply chain
leaders has felt a lot like the turn of the century
did for IT leaders,” says Rob McKeel, the CEO
for Fortna. “Before Y2K, IT was a backroom
function and didn’t have a seat at the table. Post
Y2K, IT was at the top of the boardroom agenda.
The same thing is happening now with supply
chain, as supply chain and order fulfillment in
particular are more visible inside companies, and
more stressful for the people in that function.”
A pandemic, labor shortages and snarls at the
port may not be the way you want to get noticed,
but challenges often turn into opportunities.
McKeel adds that the factors listed above
The next generation of order fulfillment is relying
more than ever on automation and innovation.
mmh.com
Gregor Schläger/Getty Images for Peerless Media
have led to an “always-on world” for the DC.
More and more facilities are operating around
the clock, and uptime of systems and people has
never been as critical.
Increasingly, distribution centers are turning to
higher and higher levels of automation, data col-
lection and software to accommodate the always
on world. Just as important to automation, McK-
eel adds, is the capability to integrate those sys-
tems to create a seamless process, one that also
provides clarity into the state of operations.
As anyone who attended Modex saw, the
materials handling industry and the customers it
serves are innovating like never before. What fol-
lows is a look at five distribution centers featured
in Modern. Each illustrates how distribution cen-
ters and materials handling technology are evolv-
ing to meet these new challenges—from facili-
ties managed by small to mid-sized organizations
to global manufacturers and retailers.
It really is a new day in the warehouse.
Shannon Faulk/Getty Images for Peerless Media
Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 51
Automation

SB Logistics: The lights out warehouse

If you have children of a certain age, you might
remember the movie “Matilda.” The school head-
mistress dreams of a perfect school, one with no
children. During times like these, when labor is
expensive, difficult to recruit and even more difficult
to hang onto, who could blame distribution center
managers for daydreaming about the perfect DC,
one with no workers.
For most, it’s just a daydream. But in Tokyo,
SB Logistics, the e-fulfillment arm of Softbank, is
working to make a lights-out facility a reality. “Our
ultimate goal is a completely automated warehouse,”
says Masashi Okabe, project manager and produc-
tion engineer for Softbank Robotics, and a member
of the team that designed the highly automated
600,000-square-foot facility in Ichikawa City.
Part of that vision includes the development of
a lights-out facility, one where the limited number
of people working in a facility are primarily there
for maintenance and supervision, and not ware-
house processes. They’re not there yet. At the time
we wrote about the facility, inbound receiving and
outbound shipping were still manual; additionally,
oversized and fragile items that can’t be handled by
automation were stored, picked and packed using
conventional process.
Still, Okabe estimated that more than 50% of the
overall work in the facility had been automated; and
an estimated 50% to 60% of the items stored in the
mini-load system could be handled by piece pick-
ing and packing robots (Berkshire Grey). SBR said
it was continuing to work with Berkshire Grey to
increase that to 70%.
“There have been very few products that we have
been unable to send to the robotic system cells,”
Okabe adds. SB Logistics believes the Ichikawa
facility is the first e-commerce fulfillment center to
completely automate the picking and packing process
after receiving customer orders.
In Okabe’s view, the technology to achieve full
automation is already available; it just can’t yet deliver
the required ROI. “But I do believe in the coming
years we will be able to reach that goal,” Okabe says.

The lights out warehouse may be closer than you

think. At SB Logistics, piece picking and packing
robots handle 60% of SKUs.
Christopher Jue/Getty Images for Peerless Media
52 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

HARTING Technology Group: Design
for efficiency and sustainability
How do you design a warehouse to sup-
port sales of 1 billion euros per year?
Especially if that warehouse will be
required to support multiple channels
of business, including servicing regional
B2B customers as well as the replenish-
ment of a global distribution network.
And, just as importantly, how do you do
it in a sustainable manner that aligns
with a company’s environmental, social
and governance (ESG) goals?
Those were the questions put to the
logistics team at HARTING Technology
Group in 2012 as it began the design of a
mmh.com
Gregor Schläger/Getty Images for Peerless Media
new 615,000-square-foot European distri-
bution center. The organization is the logis-
tics arm of HARTING, one of the world’s
largest suppliers of products that enable
industrial automation.
“After 20 years, the software running
our existing European distribution center
was unstable, and we needed more space
and throughput capacity,” recalls Achim
Meyer, managing director of logistics for
the German company.
Meyer’s team worked with a sys-
tem integrator (Koerber AG) to design
a showcase for automation, one that
included pallet- and case-handing auto-
mated storage and retrieval systems (AS/
Special Digital Issue: Automation
Autonomous lift trucks are among the
technologies deployed at HARTING
Technologies’ state-of-the-art facility
in Germany.
RS), a shuttle system, vertical lift mod-
ules, robotic palletizing and depalletizing
and RFID for tracking.
In addition to a focus on automa-
tion, sustainability was at the heart
of the design. “Sustainability is a key
component of HARTING’s 2030 strat-
egy,” Meyer notes, adding that all of
the energy in the facility comes from
renewable sources, including geothermal
and biogas technologies for heating and
cooling. Regenerative braking on storage
and retrieval cranes put energy back into
the system and an energy management
system ensures the facility optimizes the
energy it does use.
Similarly, ergonomics played a key role
in the design. “The heart of any ware-
house is still people,” Meyer says. “We
wanted the most ergonomic workstations
as possible.” For example, workstations
were designed with a team that included
engineers, specialists in ergonomics and
associates. The teams relied on Kaizen
principles to determine the location of
every box, pen and tool at a picking or
packing station.
Since going live, the facility has
received several design and architecture
awards. More importantly, it positions
HARTING for the future while illustrat-
ing where warehouse automation may be
headed in the future. “We are now flex-
ible and fast to adapt to our customers’
requirements,” Meyer says.
NorthShore Care Supply: Even the
little guys are adopting automation
They say that necessity is the mother of
invention, or in the case of NorthShore
Care Supply, the mother of innovation.
Located north of Chicago, North-
Shore Care Supply is an online provider
| October 2022 53
 Automation

NorthShore Care Supply is a small to mid-sized company that is

deploying high levels of automation to keep up with demand.

Peter Wynn Thompson/Getty Images for Peerless Media

of incontinence products—products
that are essential to the health and well-
being of the company’s customers. As a
result, the company’s order fulfillment
processes are driven by accuracy and
speed. Add to the mix that the com-
pany’s relatively small size and location
near major fulfillment centers oper-
ated by the likes of Amazon, Uline and
Medline created labor challenges even
before the pandemic.
Despite NorthShore Care’s relatively
small size, Adam Greenberg, the compa-
ny’s founder and CEO, opted for high lev-
els of automation when he opened a new
173,000-square-foot facility in 2020. The
centerpiece was a robot-to-goods picking
system designed by Numina Group that
used autonomous mobile robots (AMR)
from Waypoint Robotics, since purchased
by Locus Robotics.
A unique feature was the robots’
capacity to carry much heavier loads
than a typical autonomous mobile robot,
up to 700 pounds. This was essential
since NorthShore Care ships full cases
of product to its customers. Those cases
were delivered to an automated packing,
labeling and shipping line.
That was phase one. A year later,
Greenberg launched phase two when
he automated receiving and palletizing
with a robotic palletizer (Exact Auto-
mation and Fanuc).
Greenberg has embraced automation
for several reasons: First, the price was
now within the reach of mid-market
companies like NorthShore Care Supply;
second was that automation allowed him
to build capacity and do more with less.
“We were struggling to find people look-
ing for a permanent job for the five years
before Covid, and temps wanted to jump
from warehouse to warehouse,” he says.
The results have been impres-
sive. AMRs delivered a 40% to 50%
improvement in the speed of picking
along with improved accuracy; and
robotic palletizing has reduced the
time required to process an inbound
container from 8 man hours to 3 man
hours for most containers. It has also
created a safer work environment.
Greenberg is not done with automa-
tion, taking a look at autonomous lift
trucks for some operations. “Getting
orders out is so critical to us,” he says.
“Automation makes it easier for us to be
in control of our own destiny. If you can
afford to make the right investments, you
can deliver the customer experience you
need to be successful.”
Gap Inc.: A global platform
for e-commerce
When it comes to specialty retailers,
Gap Inc. has turned distribution into an
art form. Over the years, the company
has been an early adopter of technolo-
gies that would later become a standard
part of the tool kit, including mini-load
automated storage systems and robotic

54 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

 Long recognized as a supply
chain innovator, Gap Inc. was an
early adopter of robotic putwalls
to automate packing.

putwalls, to name just two. The com-

pany has long had a fail-fast and try
again attitude toward innovation. And,
when it finds a technology that works,
it adapts that technology into the plat-
forms it has designed to standardize
operations across the globe.
The most recent example is the sig-
nificant expansion of Gap Inc.’s primary
e-commerce distribution center outside
of Columbus, Ohio, featured in January
2021. The facility was already large, at
800,000 square feet, before Gap Inc.
added 400,000 more square feet to the
building, along with new automated
equipment and technologies. The project
doubled throughput capacity.
According to Kevin Kuntz, senior vice
president of global logistics fulfillment,
the project was guided by Gap Inc.’s core
operating principles.
• Keep it simple: “That’s No. 1,” Kuntz
says. “We know we’re going to hire seasonal
staff to get us through peak. If the design
isn’t simple, training will be difficult.”
• Be efficient: “Working in a distribu-
tion center is challenging, so we always
try to keep labor front and center in our
design,” Kuntz notes. “We do everything
we can so that the tasks aren’t too physi-
cally demanding.”
• Maximize storage: Gap Inc. facilities
Chris Cone/Getty Images for Peerless Media
use automated storage and retrieval tech-
nologies, including mini-load automated already been proved out in other facilities, 600,000 units a day for Old Navy and
storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) for such as robotic putwalls (Kindred AI) and a Gap Inc., with plans to grow that to
carton storage, and very narrow aisle pal- warehouse execution system (Vargo). 1 million units a day using the bomb
let storage. The resulting facility now includes bay sorters. After publication, Gap
• Make changes that are repeatable: To 14 miles of conveyor, 24 mini-load AS/ Inc. announced that it was planning to
the extent possible, Gap Inc. uses a global RS cranes, a bomb bay sortation system, implement AMRs from Exotec to han-
platform, with a goal of rolling out common an extensive crossbelt sorter and 40 dle returns in some of its facilities.
operating systems and proven technologies robotic putwalls—with plans to increase “There’s no question that this facil-
across the network. For that reason, Gap that to 60. At the time we published ity will determine our network of the
looked at how to incorporate tools that had the story, the facility was processing future,” says Kuntz.

mmh.com Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 55

 Automation
CJ Logistics: Meeting the
integration challenge
It might have 11 letters, but integration,
as Fortna’s Rob McKeel notes, is often
spoken by our industry as if it were a
four-letter word.
Sure, we have more software and auto-
mation tools than ever, but getting them
to play nice with each another is still a
major challenge. Too often, that leads to
islands of automation. The result is sub-
optimal operations that never realize the
full potential of an integrated system that
is optimized across all of the processes.
Integration was a hurdle to overcome
for third-party logistics provider CJ
Logistics when it set out to add autono-
mous mobile robots, automated lift
trucks, electronic pallet trucks, and voice
and vision technologies at a 1.1-million-
square-foot facility in Dallas. An impor-
tant step was not only integrating those
technologies together, but also with the
facility’s warehouse management system
(WMS) from Blue Yonder.
CJ Logistics attacked the integration
56 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
challenge with a unique Cloud-based
integration platform from a supply chain
startup (SVT Robotics). To make it work,
SVT Robotics onboards the necessary
integration points from the various solu-
tion providers onto its platform—as well
as those from a host of other solution and
software providers—and then enables a
customer like CJ Logistics to integrate
together the solutions it needs to create
its processes.
What’s more, once a solution set is
validated and deployed, it becomes a per-
manent part of the 3PL provider’s tool-
box and can be applied to other facilities
and for other customers.
For CJ Logistics, a Korean-based
global third-party logistics (3PL) provider
with U.S. headquarters in Des Plaines,
Ill., this was a strategic initiative. It was
designed to automate as much non-
value-added horizontal travel as possible
in the facility, along with adding automa-
tion to manual picking processes, but to
do it in a way that it could then be rolled
out to other facilities.
At a Texas facility, CJ Logistics
is using an integration platform
to create a solution using AMRs,
autonomous lift trucks and
vision-directed picking.
Shannon Faulk/Getty Images for Peerless Media
One of the first, but not only, chal-
lenges was integrating the various auto-
mation technologies together so that
they could be managed by CJ Logistics’
WMS. And, that’s where the platform
came in.
The platform also handles orchestra-
tion decisions so that, for instance, a
task for pallet movement on the dock
can be assigned to an electronic pallet
truck (EPT) rather than an automated
lift truck (AFLs) if it just involves travel
without putaway.
In another example, lot capture was
not a requirement for every product,
so utilizing the platform, CJ Logistics
could determine in which zones to
make it available.
“One of the successes of this proj-
ect is that technology is evolving very
quickly,” says Kevin Coleman, co-CEO,
CJ Logistics America. “And I don’t know
where it ends. We now have the flexibil-
ity to swap out one end point for another
and connect that back to the require-
ments of our customers.” •
mmh.com
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Automation
AUTOMATION:
Why software is
THE STAR
As fulfillment centers and warehouses become more highly automated facilities
with multiple types of automation, software’s role looms larger.
Issues like coordinating multiple systems around cut-off times and service
levels, as well as knowing when and how to scale automated systems
to accommodate peaks in demand, are two leading reasons why.
C
onventional wisdom posits
that the market for ware-
house automation is explod-
ing because companies with
fulfillment operations can’t find enough
workers to stick with largely manual
processes in the face of rapidly growing
BY ROBERTO MICHEL, e-commerce volumes.
SENIOR EDITOR That idea has companies looking at
autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and
other types of warehouse automation,
such as robotic, high-density goods-to-
person (GTP) systems, as well as more
traditional automation, to do more with
less for crucial processes.
All of this thinking is true, but it
glosses over a fundamental challenge
operations face as they implement more
automation: getting multiple systems to
work together in unison and releasing
work to these assets in a way that both
58 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
achieves high utilization and gets orders
out the door on time.
This ability to coordinate multiple
systems and resources—what’s come to
be known as orchestration—is where
software comes in. And, it’s a core
reason why the materials handling
automation market is becoming more
software focused.
“Historically, the main value proposi-
tion was more on the hardware,” says
Rueben Scriven, senior analyst with
research firm Interact Analysis, which
tracks the automation market. “If a
company wanted a good automation
solution, they would turn to a company
with reputable, innovative hardware. But
over time, these systems have gotten
commoditized, where by and large the
automated equipment you can get from
various vendors is going to be similar.”
mmh.com
Warehouse automation system vendors offer software that helps with issues like maximizing throughput and ensuring higher
efficiencies for the equipment.
For vendors, says Scriven, hardware
commoditization creates a need to dif-
ferentiate their solutions and create
lasting ties to customers. While main-
tenance and services of automated
equipment has been one way to do
that, increasingly, it’s software that
sets vendors apart, and helps opera-
tions achieve a better flow of goods
through more highly automated DCs.
“It’s partly about vendors needing
to differentiate and create lock-in; and
viewed more optimistically, software can
add a lot of value by helping operations
achieve a better flow of goods,” says
Scriven.
Of course, anyone who uses a mobile
phone or a robot vacuum knows that
good hardware needs good software to
be effective. That dual nature has long
existed in the warehouse automation
mmh.com
market as well, with warehouse control
system (WCS) software having been
applied for decades to configure and
monitor automation. But market observ-
ers say that what is happening now with
software is less about governing the
speeds and feeds of each zone of auto-
mation and more about orchestration
of the entire DC as a system, as well as
knowing when and how to adjust spe-
cific resources to accommodate peaks.
Over the years, vendors with WCS
have enhanced their software with more
capabilities around functions like order
release logic and load balancing to come
up with what is known warehouse execu-
tion system (WES) software.
Today, says Howard Turner, director
of supply chain systems at consulting
firm St. Onge, WES software, offered
by multiple types of vendors including
Special Digital Issue: Automation
automation vendors, is key to orchestrat-
ing multiple automated systems.
“When implemented properly, WES
does carry out this vital orchestration
role where the software acts much like
an orchestra conductor, getting mul-
tiple assets to work as one, so you can
achieve the throughput and customer
service you are after,” Turner says.
WES is offered by various types of
vendors, including major warehouse
automation OEMs, systems integra-
tors, and some warehouse management
system (WMS) providers. Additionally,
some vendors may offer related predic-
tive analytics tools, and providers of
robotics solutions also stress the soft-
ware capabilities of their systems when
it comes to monitoring performance
and order fulfillment progress. That
makes examination of software more
| October 2022 59
Automation
important when putting in place effec-
tive warehouse automation.
“When a company acquires some
automation today, they are not just get-
ting equipment. They are getting the
software elements and all that comes
with that in terms of orchestration and
order release, and being able to look at
throughput and picking efficiencies.
You can’t overlook the importance of the
software, which is essentially the brains
of the operation,” says Turner.
What’s in WES
WES is offered by a variety of ven-
dors, including major automation
vendors who also make hardware,
systems integrators who’ve evolved
60 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
full-fledged WES from WCS, and a
few of the major providers of WMS,
which typically remains a key system
for warehouse transactions and inven-
tory management, even when WES
is deployed. But what does WES
really do, and why are these functions
important to deriving maximum value
from automation?
Coordination of multiple automated
systems is WES’s overall purpose.
“Because of all the fulfillment challenges
posed by e-commerce and omni-channel
trends, we’re pulling in more and more
technologies to create efficiencies, and
it’s really the responsibility of the software
to tie all those together efficiently,” says
Mary Elliott, chief product and technology
officer with Fortna, an automation solu-
tion supplier that offers WES. “The ability
to orchestrate those varied systems in an
intelligent, optimized way is what the soft-
ware provides.”
One way WES coordinates the allo-
cation of work across automated sys-
tems is with smart order release, which
instead of the big “waves” of work,
releases work to systems in smaller
chunks with the current status and
capacity of multiple zones of automation
in mind. This order release function can
be thought of as the starting point for
orchestration, with WES’s ties to lower-
level control systems alerting of any
unexpected events, or bottlenecks, that
might be developing, with some soft-
ware offering “load balancing” features
to help adjust to the present reality on
the floor.
“The other main benefit from WES
is real-time visibility into what’s hap-
pening with your systems and pro-
cesses,” says Elliott. “It can be really
hard for someone in operations to look
at different systems and try to under-
stand what is happening and react
appropriately. Again, that is where the
intelligence of WES solutions comes
in, and why the software is so impor-
tant, because you can’t get that under-
standing from the equipment alone.
You need a layer of software intelli-
gence that sits over that equipment and
monitors behavior.”
Another way WES helps get more
from automated equipment, in addi-
tion to the higher-level coordination
role, is to provide logic and rules for
maximizing throughput of automated
storage and retrieval (AS/RS) and GTP
Robotic piece picking solutions are driven
by AI software that gives the robotic arm
hardware the intelligence to know how to
best grasp different items.
mmh.com
systems. This happens on an ongoing
basis as work is assigned to a system,
while the software’s visibility features
help managers decide when it’s time to
scale up the system’s performance by
doing things like opening more picker
workstations, or adding robots or car-
riers to a system, points out Markus
Schmidt, president of Swisslog Logis-
tics Automation Americas, a provider
of warehouse automation and WES.
Being able to maximize the throughput
within a zone of automation is largely a
matter of software, he explains.
“Software is critical when it comes
to getting the most utilization out of an
AS/RS solution, and knowing when to
scale up and down,” says Schmidt. “For
instance, some software might only
require a system to bring the nearest
item in an order to the pick station.
Excellent software will take into con-
sideration multiple variables including
where the item is located, if the bin or
shelf is full or empty, or assign prior-
ity for expiry dates among many other
requirements. This allows the user to
get the most utilization and throughput
out of the system.”
Visualizing the operation
Since many WES solutions grew out of
WCS, they have close ties to the control
systems that directly govern the automa-
tion on the floor. Add analytics over that
tie-in, and WES shapes up as an over-
arching dashboard for DC management.
“Correctly tailored to the solution,
[WES] can provide tangible benefits to
operators and maintenance personnel
by showing robotic battery utilization
and capacity, path utilization using
heat mapping to identify choke points,
AS/RS capacity utilization, handling
device cycle times, and other relevant
machine performance metrics that can
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drive operational decisions related to
preventative maintenance schedules
and mechanical intervention,” says
Schmidt. “Unification of WES and
WMS simplifies business intelligence
analysis and can speed decision-
making in the front office as well with
inventory management, slotting and
operational staffing.”
Solution providers with WES and
predictive maintenance software are in
an ideal position to offer dashboards
to managers who don’t want to scour
separate user interfaces and perfor-
mance monitoring visualizations to see
what is going on with an operation,
says Michael Conrath, chief product
and technical officer for Kuecker
Pulse Integration (KPI), an automa-
tion solution provider with WES and
other software.
“What we want to do is figure out
how we can take data from multiple
disparate sources and consume and
view it in a unified manner that’s useful
to our customers,” Conrath says. “We
may never have a generic, one-size-fits-
all dashboard because of the different
systems used by customers, but there
is value in a more unified approach to
visualizing operational trends.”
To make that work, says Conrath,
solution providers need to have expertise
in using applications programming inter-
faces (API) to automation and robotics
solutions from various vendors, rather
than just offering the dashboard piece.
Besides WES functionality and dash-
boarding, Conrath sees modeling and
simulation of warehouse processes and
material flows, and predictive mainte-
nance software, as other key aspects of
what solution providers need to bring
to the table to make the design of ware-
house automation systems, and their
operation, more effective.
Special Digital Issue: Automation
Asset analytics
A natural area of focus for materials
handling automation vendors is to offer
software for predictive analytics over
equipment uptime. This software may
be separate from a WES or WCS solu-
tion, but it all ties back to the notion
that an automation solution’s value
increasingly comes from software.
Sebastian Titze, manager of digital
transformation in North America for
Beumer Group, a provider of automated
materials handling solutions, says soft-
ware and other digital solutions are an
important focus for Beumer, since auto-
mation systems generate an enormous
amount of data that can be analyzed for
productivity gains.
Beumer is well known for its sort-
ers, but as Titze explains, it also offers
machine control, WCS and digital soft-
ware products such as its BG Insight
software that offers data analytics with
visualizations and machine learning to
inspect root causes of inefficiencies
and alarms.
“Optimized systems will rely more and
more on the data, especially when more
automated systems become increasingly
complex to operate,” says Titze.
Beumer’s systems generally can inte-
grate with any WES or WCS, though its
own WCS can be configured and used
to optimize the sortation equipment and
coordinate material flow with other sys-
tems such as inbound doors, loading and
unloading equipment, conveyors or other
materials handling systems.
“This [orchestration role] is abso-
lutely critical, and every machine
manufacturer wants as much informa-
tion about the surrounding processes
as possible, so they can optimize the
outcome of their specific process
within the facility,” Titze says.
With robotics solutions, software
| October 2022 61
Automation
Warehouse execution software manages order release, offers visibility into throughput,
and provides a user interface for goods-to-person workstations.
plays at multiple levels. Autonomous
mobile robot (AMR) vendors, for
example, don’t just make robots, they
also offer fleet manager software, perfor-
mance monitoring and analytics. Some
vendors are also expanding into broader
orchestration with functions like pack-
out lines. Of course, artificial intelli-
gence (AI) is in many robotics solutions,
so the system can continuously learn
over time when it comes to issues like
path optimization, or how to best grasp
and manipulate items.
In the piece picking robotics market,
solution providers typically partner with
leading vendors of industrial robots with
articulating arms, rather build their own
robots, and the same typically holds true
for vision sensors. The value and intel-
lectual property of piece picking robot-
ics vendors is typically centered on AI
software and associated vision technol-
ogy that permits a robot to perceive and
understand what is presented to it.
Clinton Smith, chief technology offi-
cer for RIOS, a provider of AI-powered
62 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
robotic piece picking solutions, explains
that while RIOS designs its own end
effectors (the hardware at the tip of an
industrial robot that grips items), AI-
based software gives the hardware the
needed intelligence to know how to grasp
and manipulate items. In practice, robot-
ics piece picking solutions call for a com-
bination of software, hardware and engi-
neering capabilities from the provider.
“I would say that hardware and soft-
ware are equally important—one can’t
function without the other,” says Smith.
RIOS’s AI software uses artificial
neural network technology that mim-
ics how brains function in determining
how to grasp and handle items, Smith
explains. “Such techniques are required
given the complexity and challenge
of piece-picking use cases, which can
include high SKU variation, changing
environmental and visual conditions,
difficult visual properties involved with
certain SKUs, fast cycle times, and pre-
cision and accuracy requirements.”
Additionally, RIOS offers hybrid-
Cloud software for real-time monitor-
ing of cell performance, such as count
statistics, while offering APIs for inte-
gration to WMS. RIOS partners with
FANUC for articulating robotic arms,
though it has developed its own end
effectors for different classes of items.
“End-effector hardware is extremely
important because, in these new and
challenging use-cases, where you may
have changing SKUs, jumbled items
and irregular geometries, it needs to
replicate the capabilities of the human
hand,” says Smith. “As a result, practi-
cally speaking, an end effector usually
needs to be designed for a particular
class of use cases, such as by size,
geometry, weight or whether an item is
hard or soft. This requires a sufficiently
sophisticated software stack that can
adapt not only to these different use-
cases, but to the appropriate manipula-
tion with a given end effector.”
Take a step back from visual “wow
factor” of the latest in warehouse auto-
mation and robotics, and it is really
software at the WES and analytics levels
that will allow users to flex multiple
zones of automation to current demand
patterns and rapidly changing resource
availability, vendors agree.
Most WCS software can’t optimize
the overall DC like WES can, explains
Laura Bickle, senior offering manager
for WES at Honeywell Intelligrated, a
major provider of warehouse automation
and related software. “The WCS system
is focused on product throughput, but
not optimizing the process end to end
like a WES can,” says Bickle. “By utiliz-
ing artificial intelligence and machine
learning, WES enables the customer to
make real-time, last-minute decisions
based on system status to avoid conges-
tion and maximize throughput.” •
mmh.com
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Automation

AUTOMATION SURVEY:
Budgets healthy, though
labor availability issue grows
Our annual automation survey finds increasing budgets for
automation and rising interest in automated solutions with reliable
parts availability, as well as turnkey, integrated solutions. And
though budgets are up, stresses show around labor availability,
raising its importance as a driver for automation.

BY ROBERTO MICHEL, SENIOR EDITOR

F
In light of the coronavirus pandemic, or our annual Automation Solution Study, we
is your company changing its purchase asked readers where they are in their use of
plans for warehouse and DC solutions? warehouse automation and plans and budgets
for deploying more systems, as well as the factors
they consider important in solutions. The main posi-
Yes 34% tive finding is that as we enter the second year of the
global Covid-19 pandemic, readers expressed more
certainty about moving forward with plans, increas-
No 43%
ing budgets for automation.
Those over-arching findings on budget and out-
Unsure at
look are driven by familiar needs in the materials
the present time 23% handling industry: more labor-intensive filling of
e-commerce orders, tighter fulfillment cycle times,
and difficulty finding enough labor. In fact, dif-
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG) ficulty finding enough labor shot up this year as a
driver for automation investments.

64 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

 Automated Solutions that
DRIVE Your Fulfillment

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DMW&H has refined a unique approach to automated solutions.
We design, integrate, install, and support complex material handling programs
that deliver complete, collaborative automation solutions that will
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www.dmwandh.com
Automation
How much do you estimate your company
will have spent on all materials handling
equipment and solutions in 2021?
$5M or more 29%
$2.5M to $4.99M 14%
$1M to $2.49M 11%
$500,000 to $999,999 9%
$100,000 to $499,999 16%
Less than $100,000 21%
$1.215 $1.579
M M
2020 2021
How will this compare with the amount
your company will spend in these years?
2020 24%
2021 34%
2022 53%
Will
increase
Modern Material Handling’s “2022
Automation Solutions Study,” con-
ducted by Peerless Research Group,
was in the field during November 2021,
a year after the 2021 survey was in the
field in November 2020, and roughly
18 months since the 2020 survey
was conducted in April of 2020. That
results in three automation surveys
we’ve conducted since the pandemic
hit, with less uncertainty expressed
about automation plans today.
Our 2022 survey shows that budgets
66 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
Budgets up
Let’s start with the positive: increas-
ing budgets. This year, when we asked
respondents how much their companies
would spend on materials handling solu-
tions and automation in the present year
(choosing from budgetary dollar-range
brackets), the average came to $2.02
million, up from an average of $1.57
million last year, and $1.21 million for
the survey conducted in April 2020.
Of course, each survey brings a new
respondent mix from our reader base,
but the overall trajectory shows strong
$2.023 growth.
Average
M We also asked how current spend
compares with anticipated spend in
2022 the coming year, and this year, 53%
are expecting automation and systems
spending to increase, up from 34% who
answered that way in late 2020, and
24% who predicted growth in the survey
before that, back in April 2020.
31% 16% 29% Given that the April 2020 survey
came during the early stages of the pan-
30% 17% 19% demic, when plant and business shut-
downs were fairly widespread, it’s not
27% 7% 13%
surprising the warehouse automation
budget showed some hesitancy then. In
Stay Will Too soon
the same decrease to tell that survey, 29% said it was “too soon to
tell” on automation spend for the com-
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG) ing year. Now two surveys later, 13%
have that response, a significantly lower
are growing, with more than 50% expect- level of uncertainty. Additionally, 7% this
ing more automation spending in the year expect automation spending at their
coming year, but stresses like concerns company to decline, down from 17% last
about labor availability, are showing more year, and 16% for the survey in 2020.
than ever. Those stresses are reflected in We also asked respondents whether
our survey, along with user preference for the pandemic is causing a change in
solutions that are integrated, turnkey and purchase plans for automation. This
not prone to parts-availability problems. year, 43% said “no,” 34% said “yes,” and
In short, our readers are dealing with 23% were unsure. By comparison, last
high order volume, more difficulties find- year, 24% said “no,” 35% said “yes,” and
ing labor, and subsequently, they want 32% were unsure. That higher “no” level
reliable automation to help them step up indicates less uncertainty this year. This
to these challenges. is not surprising given that the pandemic
mmh.com
During the next 2 years, what areas are you looking to improve
in your warehouse/DC operations?
2020 2021 2022
73% 71% 69%
66% 64%
62%
58% 56%
54% 55% 55%
51% 51% 52% 50% 52%
48% 47% 46%
44%
40% 41%
35%
27%

Throughput Picking Warehouse Labor Order Order Order Packaging

efficiency capacity reduction cycle time accuracy fill rate
(lines picked/hour) utilization
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)

How would you best describe your order fulfillment

operations (picking and packaging)? million, down a bit from last year’s
$784 million average.
46% 44% 46% 45% 47%
42% The biggest percentage of respon-
dents (64%) are locations with ware-
house operations, 21% are at a corporate
6% 7% 6%
headquarters, and combined 12% are
5% 3% 3%
either at a manufacturing site or at a DC
Highly automated A mix of automated Mostly or all manual Not applicable that supports a manufacturing site.
and manual processes

2020 2021 2022

has led to an increased level of e-com-
merce, making many warehouses busier
than ever.
The reality is that efficient DC opera-
tions are a must for a retail economy
that is becoming more e-commerce
based. For instance, Mastercard recently
announced that preliminary analysis of
its “SpendingPulse” data on the 2021
holiday season showed that e-commerce
buying was up 11% versus the 2020
holiday season, and constitutes 20.9%
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)
of total retail sales for the 2021 season,
up from 20.6% in 2020 and 14.6% in
2019.Add in the increased difficulties
in finding enough labor, and the macro-
level pressures driving the need for more
automation are clearly there.
Of the 117 readers who participated
in our 2022 automation study, 24%
are with companies with less than $50
million in revenues, 11% are with com-
panies with $1 billion or more sales,
while the average revenue size is $710
Reliability as priority
The leading evaluation priorities
revealed by this survey tend to stay fairly
stable year to year. Once again, system
uptime and reliability are the No. 1 fac-
tor with an 89% response, same as last
year. The second top factor—support
and response time—stayed at the same
85% response level it did last year.
We did see a change in third
spot, where “parts availability/risk of
obsolescence” was cited by 80% of
respondents, 10% higher than last
year—enough to move this factor
into third. Meanwhile, total cost of
ownership (cited by 72%) slotted in at
fourth this year, down from third last
year. Other evaluation criteria that saw

mmh.com Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 67

Automation

Which order fulfillment activities are you currently employing?

And, which are you looking to implement or improve over the next 24 months?
In use Plan to implement/improve
84% 58%
Warehousing and storage 68% 32%
72% 28%
70% 52%
Full and mixed pallet 55% 29%
load fulfillment 64% 36%
63% 43%
Case and mixed case fulfillment 59% 33%
63% 37%
48% 40%
Individual pick, pack 51% 36%
and ship e-commerce fulfillment 63% 37%
2020
57% 40%
Order customization, repacking 51% 33% 2021
and value-added services 63% 37% 2022
70% 37%
Individual pick, pack and ship 63% 35%
wholesale distribution fulfillment 74% 26%

Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)

What conventional equipment is currently

in use in your organization? integration to warehouse management
systems (WMS) or other systems, and
89% 2020 2021 2022 that don’t place a systems integration
84% 85% 84%
81%
78% burden on the end user organization.
73% 73% 72%
70% Many respondents may be past the
66%
61% “kicking-the-tires” phase when it comes
to using more automation and may be
48%
more focused on the practical aspects
42%
of integrating, running and maintaining
33%
systems.
The annual survey also asks to what
extent various operations and informa-
tion management functions have been
Racks Lift trucks Dock Palletizers, Hoists, cranes,
and shelving equipment pallets/totes, monorails automated. This year, the category that
bins, containers saw the biggest gain is replenishment,
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG) which was automated for 6% of respon-
dents last year, but climbed to 14% this
an elevated response this year were While we don’t ask respondents year. Automated reporting also gained,
integration and compatibility, up 5%; to explain their overall approach to reaching 22% this year, up from 17%
warranty strength, up 7%; and turnkey evaluating automation investments, it last year, as did conveyance (now auto-
solutions approach, up 4% versus last does seem that this year, the respon- mated by 18%, up from 13%).
year. Down a bit were factors includ- dents are after systems that just work. In a related question for these pro-
ing purchase price, scalability, and That means solutions that don’t have cesses, the survey asked whether the
green and sustainable solutions. issues with parts, and offer reliable process is currently fully automated, par-

68 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

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www.witron.com
Automation

What automated equipment will you be upgrading Generally, less hesitancy shows in
or implementing during the next 24 months? terms of worrying about facility shut-
downs and being able to install automa-
78%
Pocket sortation tion during a pandemic. A year before,
82%
the comments included ones like “we
88%
A-frame picking technologies put projects off but are now revisit-
82%
ing them in a limited form,” whereas
77% this year, the comments were about
Robotics–picking
78% pandemic-related demand being strong,
68%
driving consideration of solutions to deal
Automatic guided vehicles
(AGVs) 78% with increasing orders and supply chain
constraints.
68%
Robotics–mobile In terms of the operational areas
collaborative robotics 77%
they’d like to improve within the next
61% two years, top areas this year include
Robotics–palletizing
76% throughput—highest at 73%—followed
Shuttle systems and/or 65% by picking efficiency (71%), and ware-
mobile robotic storage
and retrieval systems 72% house capacity utilization (66%). Addi-
tionally, order cycle time, at 55%, was
62%
Automated packaging solutions up 15%, while interest in reducing the
68%
labor requirement also grew, from 48%
Goods-to-person picking 45% last year to 55% this year.
solutions (donor totes are
delivered to a workstation) 59%

Weighing, cubing and 48% Fulfillment automation needs

dimensioning equipment
Automated storage
including AS/RS, mini-loads,
carousels and vertical lifts
Conveyor and sortation systems
tially automated, or “currently manual,
but with plans to automate,” or finally,
“mostly/fully manual, with no plans to
automate.” For example, for “storage” this
year, 9% say it is fully automated, 23%
say it is partially automated, and another
28% says it is currently manual, but they
have plans to automate it.
The leading processes that are
currently manual, but with growing
percentages in terms of plans to auto-
mate, include retrieval (31%); picking
2022
54%
47%
51%
50%
50%
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)
(30%); storage (28%); followed by
packaging (27%).
Pandemic impacts
The study asked whether the pandemic
has changed plans around DC automa-
tion. As mentioned previously, this year, a
much higher percentage (43% compared
to 24% a year before) reported that “no,”
the pandemic wasn’t changing purchase
plans, while those unsure dropped from
32% a year ago, to 23% this year.
While it’s true that very few warehouses
can be considered fully automated, “lights-
out” facilities, this survey shows that most
DCs aren’t manually run sites, either.
When we asked readers to select the
level of automation in their fulfillment
operations, on a scale of highly auto-
mated, a mix of automated and manual,
and mostly or completely manual, as
well as non-applicable, 46% said their
DCs rely on a mix of automated and
manual processes (same as a last year),
while 6% said they have highly auto-
mated warehouses. That leaves 42%
who said their DCs are largely or com-
pletely manual, the lowest that response
has been in the past three years.
In terms of current order fulfill-
ment activities, most companies
(72%) currently use warehousing and

70 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

If you plan to evaluate or purchase automated materials handling equipment,
technology or software in the next 2 years, rank the reasons for your decision
in order of importance
(Rank most important first, next most important 2nd, etc.)

202

191
2021
165
2022
156
144
134

116

102 104 98

87 87

Need to fill orders Increase in piece To enable Customers are Keeping up with Inability to find
faster to meet picking and packing our businesses demanding it/ the competition, and retain reliable
customer service driven by increasing new go-to-market Customer-driven who are automating DC associates
level agreements e-commerce orders strategies to keep up
and expectations with demand
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)

What supply chain execution software solutions are presently in use in your organization
and which will you be upgrading or implementing during the next 24 months?
In use Plan to upgrade/implement
72%
WMS 63% 37%
(Warehouse management system) 62% 38%

56%
TMS 38% 47%
(Transportation management system) 57% 43%

39%
WCS 31% 48%
(Warehouse, or equipment, control system) 53% 47%

35%
LMS 23% 64%
(Labor management system) 45% 55%

20%
Slotting software 25% 59%
42% 58%

WES 25%
(Warehouse execution system) 25% 55%
42% 58%

29%
2020
Parcel rating system 21% 2021 41%
41% 2022 38%

CMMS 30%
(Computerized maintenance 15% 69%
management system) 35% 65%

24%
YMS 21% 56%
(Yard management system) 33% 67%

Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)

mmh.com Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 71

Automation

How important are each of the following when evaluating For example, 78% said they use rack
automation systems and solutions for possible purchase? and shelving, while 73% use lift trucks,
(Rated very important 2022 v. 2021) 73% use dock equipment, 61% use pal-
89% letizers, and 48% report using hoists,
Durability/Reliability/Uptime
89%
cranes and monorails. Compared to last
Support/ 85% year’s snapshot of present use for such
Service response time 85%
equipment, the “in-use” level for hoists
Parts availability/ 70%
Risk of obsolescence 80% and cranes was up 15%, but the others
Total cost of ownership/
remained fairly stable.
87%
ROI/Maintenance costs 72% When asked about two-year plans
68% for these categories of conventional
Scalability
64% equipment, companies are most inter-
Integration/Compatibility 58% ested in upgrading or implementing
existing equipment 63%
hoists, cranes and monorails (52% this
65%
Purchase price year vs. 35% last year), as well as the
59%
broad category of palletizers, pallets,
46%
Warranty program
53% totes, bins and containers (40% this
44% 2022 year, up 1%).
Solutions are turnkey
48%

Relationship/Past experience 32% Robotics growth

with vendor, provider
Innovative/
Leading edge solutions
Green/Environmentally
friendly/Energy efficiency 14%
storage; 74% do individual pick, pack
and ship for wholesale distribution
fulfillment; and 64% execute full
and mixed pallet load fulfillment.
Sixty-three percent currently have
case and mixed case fulfillment, and
63% are doing order customization,
repacking and value-added services
(VAS). Compared to the previous
survey’s current use levels, increased
responses were seen this year for
individual pick, pack and ship for
e-commerce (up 12%), as well as cus-
tomization and VAS (also up 12%).
When we followed up on which
activities respondents are looking to
43%
37%
39%
24%
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)
improve over the next 24 months, this
year’s survey saw increased percent-
ages for improving or implementing
new systems for full and mixed pallet
load fulfillment (up 7%), case and
mixed case (up 4%), customization
and VAS (up 4%), as well individual
pick, pack and ship for e-commerce
fulfillment (up 1%).
Equipment needs
Conventional equipment like lift trucks
and dock doors, some of which may
have digital elements, remain widely
used, with use rates over 70% for some
key categories.
Our study asks about various types of
fixed and mobile warehouse automation,
including robotics. We also ask about
plans to upgrade or implement these
technologies over the next 24 months.
For example, one of the most widely
used categories of automated equip-
ment is conveyor and sortation sys-
tems, reported to be in use by exactly
half of respondents, even with last
year’s survey. When it comes two-year
plans, 50% said they have plans for
conveyor/sortation.
Current in-use levels were down a bit
for most robotics categories compared
to last year, but when it comes to plans
to upgrade or implement over the next
24 months, the robotics categories drew
higher percentages compared to last year.
For example, this year, 23% said they use
collaborative, autonomous mobile robots
(AMRs), down from 32% last year. How-
ever, 77% this year report they have plans

72 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation mmh.com

To what extent is each process automated?
Reporting 22%
Conveyance 18%
Replenishment 14% 27%
Labeling 14%
Storage 9% 23%
Picking 5%
Retrieval 2% 31%
Packaging 2%
Fully Partially Now manual
automated automated but will be
automating
for AMRs over the next two years, 9%
higher than last year’s response.
Robotic piece picking was reported as
in use by 22% this year, versus 21% last
year. However, over the next 24 months,
78% have plans for robotic picking solu-
tions, up from 68% last year.
Another growth area is robotic palletiz-
ing, reported to be in use by 24% this year,
but when it comes to plans to upgrade
or implement robotic palletizing over the
next 24 months, this year, 76% reported
they had plans for robotic palletizing, up
from 61% last year.
Other categories on the upswing
when it comes to 24-month plans
for upgrading or deploying include
pocket sortation; automatic guided
vehicles (AGVs); shuttle systems;
goods-to-person picking systems;
automated storage and retrieval sys-
tems (AS/RS); automated packaging
solutions; and cubing, weighing, and
dimensioning solutions. Goods-to-
person solutions in which donor totes
mmh.com
months. We found the leading areas
42% 15% 10% 12%
for improvement are RFID, with 51%
having plans, pick/put to light (49%),
32% 23% 7% 21%
and voice solutions (also at 49%). Forty-
21% 25% 14% three percent have plans for heads-up
39% 18% 23% 7% glasses displays/vision, which is 10%
28% 33% 7%
higher than last year.
41% 30% 14% 11%
Software priorities
31% 21% 14% Last year, when we asked which catego-
36% 27% 23% 11% ries of supply chain execution software
were currently in use, most categories
Mostly or Not were down slightly, except for slotting.
fully manual applicable
with no plans This year, almost all categories rose in
to automate terms of “in-use” percentages, except for
warehouse management system (WMS)
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)
software, which dipped 1%, but remains
the most widely deployed type of soft-
are delivered to a workstation, was ware we ask about.
particularly high growth in terms of This year, the “in-use” findings on
two-year plans, up 14%. the rise included transportation man-
agement system (TMS) solutions, in
Data capture solutions use by 57%, up from 38%; warehouse
When it comes to data collection tech- control systems (WCS), in use by 53%,
nologies, our survey found the highest up from 31%; labor management sys-
use level for bar code scanners (66%), tems (LMS), now in use by 45%, up
though at a lower percentage than in the from 23%; slotting, in use by 42%, up
previous two surveys. We also found that from 25%; and warehouse execution
mobile/wireless technologies are in use systems (WES), now in use by 42%, up
by 63% this year (up from 58%), while from 25%. Parcel rating systems and
radio frequency identification (RFID) computerized maintenance manage-
technology is now in use by 39%, up 14% ment systems (CMMS) also made gains
versus last year. in the “in-use” question, with CMMS
Use of heads-up displays and vision up by 20%.
technologies is in use by 26% of respon- We also ask about higher level sup-
dents this year, up from 12% last year. ply chain and enterprise resource plan-
Voice directed solutions were at 21% ning (ERP) software. We found the
this year, down 2% from last year. Pick- “in-use” levels remained fairly stable for
and put-to-light systems were in use by these categories this year, though order
31% this year, up from 15%. management systems (OMS) drew a
We also ask respondents if they plan 79% response this year, up from 57%.
to upgrade or implement new data col- The closely related category of distrib-
lection technologies over the next 24 uted order management (DOM) also
Special Digital Issue: Automation | October 2022 73
Automation
saw a higher current use level this year,
at 63%. Additionally, we found 56%
currently use DC network design and
optimization solutions, up from 36%
last year.
When it comes to two-year plans for
upgrades or new deployments across
these supply chain categories, this year
the only growth categories were cus-
tomer relationship management (CRM),
up by 6%, and ERP, which 41% have
plans for, up from 34%.
Provider trends
Overall, our survey did not find huge
changes in what type of partners end-
user organizations turn to for automa-
tion solutions, though systems integra-
tors did make some gains. For example,
this year, 62% said they purchase from a
distributor or dealer, up 2%. Purchasing
a system direct from the manufacturer
came in at 66% this year, up from 56%
last year.
That was enough to make buying
from the OEM the top channel choice
this year, higher than dealers at 62%,
and systems integrators coming in third
at 50%, 10% higher than last year.
In terms of which entities will help
with future purchases, things look good
for systems integrators, named by 48%
as likely channel partners for future
automation solutions, which is a sharp
20% gain versus last year.
We also ask about system maintenance
issues such as which sources are used
for parts, and who handles maintenance.
These findings remained very steady,
though we saw a 5% gain in sourcing
spares or maintenance parts direct from
the OEM. In terms of who handles main-
tenance, internal maintenance crew (67%)
tops third-party services firms (44%) and
OEM contract (40%).
74 October 2022 | Special Digital Issue: Automation
From which sources are replacement
or spare parts purchased?
Direct from manufacturer/website
Direct from the distributor/website
Direct from systems integrator/website
Retrofitter/website
10%
3%
Other
Tough challenges as driver
As mentioned previously, this survey
shows that budgets are on the upswing,
with 53% saying their budget for materi-
als handling automation is up for 2022
compared to 2021, a close to 20% gain
versus last year.
For some respondents, the auto-
mation budget can be substantial.
Asked for current year (2021) budget,
11% plan to spend between $1 mil-
lion to 2.49 million; 14% will spend
$2.5 million to $4.99 million; and
another 29% plan to spend $5 million
or more.
In warehouse operations, one of
the top challenges is the ability to find
enough reliable warehouse associates.
This year, when we asked readers to
rank the top challenges influencing
automation purchase plans, the “inabil-
ity to find and retain reliable DC asso-
ciates” moved up to the third spot as a
top challenge driving the automation
strategy, right behind the “need to fill
orders faster to meet service levels” and
“increased piece picking and packing
driven by e-commerce.”
67%
69%
74%
70%
67%
71%
32%
25%
24%
22%
13% 2020
2021
2022
4%
5%
Source: Peerless Research Group (PRG)
It’s difficult to unbundle these top
three drivers for solutions, since picking
more e-commerce orders, and complet-
ing those orders quickly and accurately,
either takes more people if you stick
with manual workflows, or it takes more
automation. Findings like the elevated
status of labor concerns as a decision
driver, coupled with strong e-commerce
growth, bode well for growing automa-
tion use in 2022.
Analyst firm IDC, in its supply
chain predictions for 2022, is estimat-
ing that by the end of 2022, chronic
worker shortages will prompt 75% of
supply chain organizations to prioritize
automation investments, resulting in
productivity improvements of 10%.
Automation vendors may quibble that
the productivity gains from automation
can often run higher than that, but that
mid-70 percentile increase in plans
around automation tracks close to
what we found when it comes to two-
year plans. In short, more automation
is shaping up as a necessity to offset
extraordinary challenges, rather than an
incremental cost-savings step. •
mmh.com