It’s probably not obvious from the focus of our articles, but at Fuzzy LogX what we end up focusing our efforts on most is the improvement of current manual operations across the complete functional spectrum within any given warehouse. Furthermore, although automating the Storage, Retrieval and Picking process seems to get most of the focus due to the ‘flashy’ technology associated with the mechanisation of these processes, Engineering the upstream and downstream processes correctly, is arguably much more important.
Due to the shift of manufacturing offshore over the last 20-30 years, we have predominantly become a nation of importers and distributors. As such, it is very common for a large portion of any Australian warehouse’s inbound volume to come from ‘indent’ or ‘imported’ containers transported overseas as sea-freight. These containers are usually then delivered to your shed with a fixed time window for your operation to de-stuff before you’re hit with demurrage fees. The clock starts ticking from the moment those doors are open.
Source: SafeWork NSW
There is a science to maximising your container utilisation and a balance that must be achieved with your unloading requirements and KPIs. For example, although filling a container from floor to ceiling may be the best way to maximise your cube utilisation, it does not necessarily assist your team when unloading. Un-packing floor stacked containers in an efficient and ergonomic manner can be an art in itself. There are companies which specialise in this work and the few times I’ve tried to build a business case competing against this specialist unloading model, it has been difficult to make it stack up with a “stomach-able” payback. Companies like ACUG and Young Guns are built around enabling this process through smart recruitment, training and processes. Invariably this is back-breaking work and thought must be placed into the ergonomics, work flow and traffic management around the de-stuff area.
Source: caljan.com
Container de-stuff process
Floor-stacked container de-stuffing can be broken down into 3 key steps:
- Carton Handling from Stack-Face: This is the act of physically reaching and removing a carton from the stacked-up pile of cartons within the container. This can sometimes be like playing Jenga! Ideally, your cartons can sustain their integrity (i.e. don’t get affected by moisture, humidity or other atmospheric conditions) and the container is filled enough that any possible rough seas encountered do not throw the contents around like a bag of skittles. Needless to say, this can be a relatively unstructured process requiring a high level of adaptability required making it the most difficult part of the process to automate. (If you’ve followed our previous articles, you’ll remember that I refer to full automated container de-stuffing as another ‘holy-grail’ in intralogistics and the complexity of this step is the key reason we’re not there yet).
- Carton move to inventory palletising location: Usually, this looks like someone walking a couple of metres to where their inbound staging pallets are waiting to be consolidated at a SKU level. This process can involve a level of sortation with Multi-SKU containers. As long as you have good cartons which are conveyable, automating this step can be quite simple. Many operations use portable slinky conveyors to reduce walking and lifting and provide some kind of manual (or gravity-def) outbound flow from the container. Taking this technology to the next level, it has been common for some time for operations with high volumes to design telescopic-boom conveyors to enable driven takeaway from the container. Longreach seems to be one of the leading suppliers of this tech in Australia. One of the key drawbacks I see with this technology is that you need to essentially man both ends of this conveyor, unless you’re inducting directly into the system at a carton level, but that’s another topic all together.
- Palletising and Wrapping to Handling Unit: This is then the act of placing the carton in the correct pre-determined arrangement onto a pallet to create the optimal handling unit for storage within the warehouse. It is then usually necessary to perform the inbound receipting process before a pallet is wrapped and staged ready for putaway. As a process, this too can be a relatively structured process and some relatively low-tech mechanised systems as well as the flashy robot palletisers are widely available for you to consider in this area.
In fact, people have been putting together interesting solutions to automate these 3 steps for some time now and in this article, we’ll explore a few of the current examples including ‘The Beast’, who I met at Promat 2019. But before diving into this technology, I’d like to discuss some other ‘simpler’ options which could yield a high return. Specifically, I’m referring to how you pack your container in the first place. Now, I usually receive an eye roll the first time I mention this to anyone in inbound operational management with the typical response around the difficulties in supplier management with the developing nations who are supplying the goods. But the same reason you manufacture your goods overseas (i.e. cheap labour) also means that you can invest in minimising your inbound effort through some smart unit load design.
I’ve been wanting to discuss unit load analysis for some time and have earmarked it for a ‘deep dive’ in one of our future articles. The basic premise with this analysis is the opportunity to get your Supplier to palletise your product in such a way as you enable you to de-stuff and skip the 3 steps outlined above almost altogether. A couple of things to keep in mind with such an analysis are the opportunities presented by High-Cube Containers, Slave Pallets and Slip Sheet technology. It can be a very eye-opening exercise which can yield substantial transport, storage and operational benefits by designing the best possible unit load to flow through the fulfilment process for your business.
Source: CopalHandlingSystems.com
Container de-stuffing Automation
Now back to automated de-stuffing of floor-to-ceiling stacked cartons. There are currently multiple highly-automated container de-stuffing solutions on the market using a mixture of robotics, conveyors and smart sensors to handle cartons from the stack-face and feed them up stream. Of these, there are 2 stand-out solutions I’d like to mention
Copal Handling Systems have their mobile container unloading system, Bastian have a neat solution encompassing mobility, an extending conveyor and a unique load handling device, not to mention Motoman have also been showing off fully autonomous robotic picking solution for some time with an early video from 2013 showing it’s capabilities back then. We’ll explore all of these and more of these Automated Container Unloading solutions as well as some of the associated design challenges next week, but I’d like to introduce you to something this week to whet your appetite.
Source: Honeywell Intelligrated
Enter the Beast
The most eye-opening machine I saw at Promat was the Honeywell Robotic Unloader, a solution which was aptly introduced to me as “The Beast”. As you can see from the picture above it looks like a mining engineer and a robotics engineer got together and designed a long-wall cross robot-wars Frankenstein machine. It looks seriously imposing and like it’s ready to eat Containers for breakfast and that’s basically what it does. But we’ll have to wait until next week’s article to explore this solution a little further, as we’ve run out of time this week. Thanks for reading!
Jeffrey Triantafilo is a Systems Improvement Engineer in Intralogistics for Fuzzy LogX an Australian boutique consulting firm, based in Inner-Western Sydney, focused on helping Warehousing and Distribution Operations improve and stay competitive in today’s ever-changing supply chain environment. If you’d like to have a chat with jT or one of his colleagues about improvements in your operation, click here.