Page 26 - Logistics News Sept / Oct 2018

Racking

Automated storage systems

embrace new roles

By Josh Bond, Senior Editor Modern Materials Handling

Distribution and fulfilment
applications are looking to
automated storage to do what it
does best—plus a little bit more.

AT THIS point, it’s clear that
automation will continue to permeate
materials handling as warehousing
and distribution operations reshape
themselves to meet unprecedented
demands. Familiar and previously
specialised technologies have been
adapted to suit a broader range of
applications, bringing the capabilities
of large and expensive automated
systems to smaller operations.
As inventory engines, automated
storage and retrieval systems (AS/
RS) are among the most potentially
transformative systems. They stand
at the centre of many goods-to-
person methodologies, buffering
and sequencing strategies and the
overarching need for accuracy,
density and speed.
Every company will approach
automation differently and, perhaps
not surprisingly, it is the smaller
organisations that stand to benefit
the most from currently available
solutions. An operation with manual
picking from ground-level storage can
easily justify automation.
For newcomers, the process of
marrying the right AS/RS to business
objectives doesn’t require mountains of
data, but it’s not a molehill either. The
ultimate goal is to get the right item to
the customer in the right quantity. But
that is not as easy as it sounds. How
many orders do we ship? How fast?
Can we spread the workload across the
day instead of scrambling before the
shipping window closes? It is important
to defi ne load units, whether pallets,
layers or cases. Will the AS/RS feed a
production line in manufacturing, or
is it in a DC that brings in full pallets

24 September/October 2018 | Logistics News