Automatic Guided Vehicles: Smart Warehouses, Smarter Productivity. Why Automation Is The Next Genera

By Author: Charles Maverick
Total Articles: 45
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External competition as well as increased internal pressures to be lean and improve productivity and the bottom line has caused many companies to reevaluate their warehouse operations. Employing the strategies of yesterday does not translate into positive results for tomorrow. If you want to improve efficiency and lower costs, automation is the answer. Increasing numbers of companies with the insight and resources are fully automating their warehouse operations.

A Smart Warehouse implies the total integration of automated technology to carry out day-to-day operations. The components of a Smart Warehouse may include the utilization of conveyor systems, Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs), Automatic Trailer Loading (ATL) vehicles, Automatic Guided Carts (AGCs), Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS), and a Warehouse Management System (WMS). When used in a concerted effort, these ingredients make for a highly productive warehouse.

A company taking the necessary steps to invest in and develop its warehouse and distribution centers' infrastructures now, ultimately, saves money later. A Smart Warehouse operation ...
... will help a warehouse manager address the goals of improving customer satisfaction and reducing operating costs. Smart Warehouses adhere to the basic principles of lean warehousing while creating a safer work environment by cutting down on the probability of human error. Smart Warehouses allow a company to not only achieve its desired results, but to add reliability, dependability and, more importantly, predictability to the process. The Smart Warehouse then allows for a lights out 24/7 operation if necessary. Companies that used to depend upon manpower can reassign key personnel to other areas where needed.

The SmartCart Automatic Guided Cart is an extremely low-cost, magnetic tape-guided Automatic Guided Vehicle that can transport finished pallets from stretch wrapping operations to AS/RS, rack staging or a floor staging area adjacent to the docks.

SmartCart AGCs typically cost much less than a conventional AGV and can be utilized as an alternative to performing similar work. It is extremely flexible because all that is needed to change the path is relocating the tape that is attached to the surface of the warehouse floor and modifying an easy-to-use Windows-based software called SmartTools®, which allows the customer to program the guidepath. Furthermore, a SmartCart AGC is perfect for transporting materials from production to the warehouse. It has the ability to deliver pallets onto a powered or gravity buffer conveyor. Once handed off, the pallet may then be taken into high-rise storage, or AS/RS to rack storage, or to the dock for trailer loading.

The SmartLoader Automatic Trailer Loading vehicle is able to stack pallets accurately and efficiently. In fact, the unmanned SmartLoader, which is directed by a Vehicle System Manager, demonstrates a higher degree of accuracy than traditional forklift operations. Deep lane storage of finished goods on pallets placed by SmartLoader is recognizably one of the most effective warehouse solutions. Because of SmartLoader's flexibility, it does not depend on fixed, rail-guided AS/RS machines that are limited to a single aisle. The SmartLoader is a free-ranging machine that uses either inertial or laser guidance to travel within a warehouse.

Additionally, SmartLoader is capable of delivering finished pallets directly into conventional, over-the-road trailers. Even more remarkable, SmartLoader does not require any modifications to the trailers or dock plates and can adapt to trailer skew. This makes the Smart Loader possibly the most powerful tool ever created for the warehouse. Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) software can be integrated with the SmartLoader Vehicle System Manager. Both the SmartCart Automatic Guided Cart and the SmartLoader systems are easy to install and allow for additional vehicles to be added as demand increases. Both automated vehicles can operate separately or as companions to one another.

Conveyors are at the heart of thousands of manufacturing, warehousing and distribution operations, providing unmatched reliability in the most demanding environments. They are used for point-to-point movement of pallets and containers.

Offerings such as the gravity roller conveyor are widely used in unit load handling systems because of their simplicity, low unit cost and ease of maintenance. Gravity roller conveyors can be applied in the form of level push-lines or graded lines using the force of gravity. AS/RS automatically deposits and retrieves loads from defined storage locations. AS/RS improves the efficiency of transporting, buffering and sequencing of standard and non-standard loads. It eliminates the excessive and repetitive handling of material, increases productivity, decreases inventory, increases the productivity capacity of existing floor space and reduces product loss. AS/RS systems can be built around rack systems, containers and machines to optimize warehouse space.

If density is an issue, but not selectivity, then a rack system may be the right choice. Rack systems are more cost-effective and are easier to reconfigure than AS/RS. Racks allow higher stacking than floor storage and provide increased storage. Drive-in or drive-through rack can be designed to allow two pallets to be handled at a time by forklifts (cutting labor in half) or SmartLoader Automatic Trailer Loading vehicles (doubling system throughput).

Based in Farmington Hills, Mich., the Jervis B. Webb Company is a world leader in developing innovative material handling technology and systems. Webb specializes in the design, engineering, installation and support of integrated systems used in the automotive, airport, beverage, warehousing and manufacturing industries.
If you are interested in automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS), then you have come to the right place. We can help you whereas automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) are concerned and we strongly recommend that you pay us a visit as soon as you can.