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E-commerce era welcomes “robots” to fasten logistics

   E-commerce logistics trends have been evolving at a faster pace. Over time, companies are looking for alternate ways to ensure rapid delivery to customers to drive their business success.

   The number of drivers has dwindled over the past few years, labor unions have demanded higher wages and fewer hours, and other companies simply do not have the money to spend on hiring additional workers. The “Robotics World” holds the answer to this problem.

   Therefore, present day trends witness machines replacing humans at logistics operations as they try to keep up with demand from the fast growing e-commerce segment.

   Warehouse automation is the need of the hour as delay in deliveries outrages the customers. Robots have entered the segment and are changing the way companies handle their fulfillment. Robots are now collaborating with humans and in some instances working autonomously.

   “By utilising automation and robotics, we expect to reduce time by replacing manually intensive tasks, and respond quickly to the new and emerging demands, in most cases even anticipating them”, said Sanjeev Mehta, vice president and head of product and design for eKart, Flipkart’s dedicated logistics partner.

   Amongst the major players in the e-commerce segment, Amazon has been the trendsetter. Amazon was a pioneer in using robots in fulfillment centers. In 2011 Amazon started using 1,300 robots from Kiva Systems, a Boston-based robotics start-up. Amazon liked the robots so much, it bought Kiva Systems in 2012. There are now 15,000 Kiva robots spread across 10 of Amazon’s warehouses.

   Using a collaborative approach, Kiva’s squat orange robots pick up shelves of products from the warehouse floor and bring them to a human employee who picks items and then packs them into individual boxes for shipping. Kiva’s robots avoid running into each other by using sensors.

   Global logistics group DHL’s Australian warehouses started trialling smart glasses like Google Glass that increased the speed at which staff picked boxes from shelves by 25 percent because they didn’t have to use pieces of paper or hand-held scanners to find the boxes in the warehouse, freeing up their hands.

   Urgent need for automation also comes from the concept of seasonal rise in sales is fast getting obsolete, industry experts said. “For a month you have an iPhone model as a slow-selling product. Suddenly a retailer announces a heavy discount the next month and there is a major influx of orders. How do you suddenly get additional manpower to handle a spurt?” said Apurva Vadera, who heads operations at GreyOrange India, robotics firm. The firm works mainly with companies such as Flipkart, gojavas, DTDC and Jabong.

   “One of our first customers was Flipkart, for which we designed an automated sortation system at a fifth of the price that was being charged by an overseas company”, he said.

   Fetch Robotics, founded in 2014 manufactures Fetch and Freight, a complete pick and pack system. Fetch can select the items from the shelf (up to 13 pounds), while Freight provides transit through the warehouse. The system includes software to support the robots and integrate with the warehouse environment. With the help of its automated warehouse, Zappos grossed over $ 1 billion in 2009, which eventually led to Amazon.com paying $ 1.2 billion deal to acquire Zappos.It deploys fully automated warehouse services from KIVA Systems to help the company get the most efficiency out of its operation in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. Zappos is able to maintain free shipping, a 365-day return policy and delivery within 24 hours of purchase.

   Following the trend, Kerry logistics product customization and consolidation centre in Hong Kong is scurrying around six fully automated and programmed robotic “butlers” to speed up the fulfillment of e-commerce orders. Real-time sales orders are transmitted to the robots, and then the warehouse management system indicates the item to be picked up by using a lighting system in which every item is tracked using a barcode. The butlers operate continuously and can pick 280 items per hour, four times faster than by a human.

   Another robot manufacturer, Hitachi has developed a two-armed robot that it says can pick up items from shelves in less than half the time required by existing robots. The camera on its arm can locate the requested item while the machine is still moving, which enables it to work more quickly. It should be commercially available in 2020.

   Amazon’s next foray is robots, like Fetch, that can grasp items with the objective of eliminating human pickers. In a new book, Machines of Loving Grace, New York Times reporter John Markoff writes that Amazon’s Kiva robots are “clearly an interim solution toward the ultimate goal of building completely automated warehouses.”

   Robots don’t require health insurance, lunch breaks, or vacations. They can work 24/7 and don’t fall sick. This is particularly useful during the holiday season when ecommerce merchants typically hire additional warehouse workers. Robots can reduce logistics costs substantially with minimal human intervention.

   Assessing the usage of robots also highlights one major drawback of inaccuracy. This can be traced to the situation where a hopeful customer received a Vimbar packed instead of phone.

   Third-party logistics providers are also converting to automation. The courier firm DTDC in India, for example, uses a 25-arm robot to pick orders at a rate of 3,500 orders per hour, about one per second.

   Being a spectator to this situation, one can easily foresee robots replacing humans performing simple repetitive tasks in many industries. In five years a robot will be less expensive than a human employee with benefits.

   The entire idea of automation centers on customer satisfaction. Whilst automation will reduce employment opportunities and may lead to inaccuracy in deliveries but it is paramount to enhance the supply chain efficiency.