Automated Product Handling: Moving product from point A to point B

When automating the movement of a product or products the choices available are relatively few: Conveyor, Robot, AGV/LGV, Crane(Gantry). Most applications will make use of one or more of these.

Conveyor: Can be very fast if product moved is uniform and light weight. If conveyed product varies in size and/or weight then cost and speed are sacrificed. Provides a fixed route or path for the product.

 AGV/LGV: Automated self-guided vehicles are more expensive than conveyors but provide flexible and re-configurable routing. They are relatively slow and move one item at a time so they are not for fast moving products. They are, however, good for moving large, heavy and/or irregular shaped product, for example an engine block.

 Robot: More expensive than AGV. Somewhat limited to what it can handle since it can essentially pick up one ‘type’ of product. Requires a special gripper (end-effector) tool to manipulate the product. Very accurate with placement. Can be relatively fast. Has fixed route or path but provides multiple axes of movement. The speed of operation is determined by the size and weight of the product.

Crane and Gantries: Most expensive. Ideally suited for moving large heavy equipment. Has the most flexible route since it can pick up and drop off anywhere within it’s 3D envelope. Will require a special gripper as with robot. Does not provide the degrees of freedom that a robot provides.

Some of the motivations for automating:

• To do it faster
• To reduce cost by eliminating human labor
• To eliminate cost resulting from human errors

 Some of the drawbacks:

• You can’t lay-off or furlough  automation equipment. So the ROI is related to the utilization, the higher the utilization rate the shorter the ROI.
• You can’t get into it incrementally, there is a large initial investment.

Optimizing Material Handling
 
Typical material handling automation solutions normally only consider the simple movement of the product and do not explore the more rewarding optimization options that can lead to real benefits. Optimization algorithms take into account the ‘dynamics’ of the problem domain to optimize the resources of the system. In doing so the solution usually results in lower cost due to reduction in resource requirements.

Case Studies

Software Optimized Beverage Distribution

Automated Mixed Package Palletizing (coming soon)

Automated Truck Loading (coming soon)