THE EVER-SHIFTING developments in various business industries, including in the food and beverage sector, continue to drive innovation in warehouse automation.

Trends such as the need for maximizing storage space, greater availability to offer complete product range, rapid urbanization, demand for fresher products, less space per article in shelves and e-commerce, are reasons for expanding into automation. And for companies to stay competitive in a tough market environment, warehouse automation is an obvious option.

Impressive growth in the warehouse automation market

A report published by the US-based technology research and advisory firm ARC Advisory Group, entitled “Warehouse Automation and Control Global Market Research Study^[1]”, revealed that there is rapid growth in the warehouse automation and control systems market globally and it is being driven primarily by the boom in e-commerce and its profound effects on fulfillment requirements.

“The revenue growth of this market isn’t obvious because most of its vendors are privately held companies that do not report their revenues.  But as the market is analyzed and the data is compiled, it becomes evident that the growth is rapid and widespread across vendors, regions, and technologies,” according to Clint Reiser, senior analyst at ARC and the principal author of the study.

The retail fulfillment paradigm shift, driven by the e-commerce boom, is stimulating widespread growth in warehouse automation and control system sales. Retailers and their wholesalers and 3PL (Third-Party Logistics) fulfillment partners are investing in systems that can efficiently handle a high volume of small, multi line-item orders. These systems include warehouse control systems (WCS), goods-to-person systems such as shuttles, and pick-to-light and put-to-light. 

E-commerce in the F&B sector represents grocery home delivery service or at the very minimum pick up points for orders such as drive-through or stalls. Although still a weak business proposition, home delivery presents an opportunity for retailers in the F&B sector. 

ARC adds that warehouse control systems (WCS) provide real-time control of resources, equipment, and material flows across the facility. WCS contains the critical intelligence that coordinates automated and manual processes across a facility that ultimately delivers the desired performance improvements. 

Many of these systems have evolved to include optimization functionality that prioritizes orders and processes to deliver further performance improvements.  In addition, the relatively high level of flexibility inherent in WCS has made them an efficient point of adaptation to the changing requirements and agility required for e-commerce fulfillment. 

Finally, business intelligence modules attached to WCS provide valuable visibility into real-time status of operations across the facility.  Consequently, many vendors consider their control system software to be a critical differentiator between themselves and their competitors.

Automating your warehouse: Do the benefits outweigh the cost? (Photo © Gualtiero Boffi | Dreamstime.com)

For some manufacturers the road to automation is fraught with hesitation because of some misconceptions.  

Top-of-mind is high investment cost. It may be right that automation initiatives require substantial investment in the initial stages but in recent years we’ve seen a growing number of companies investing in warehouse automation because benefits such as operational dependability and significant enhancements in order fulfillment outweigh the initial cash outlay in the long run, the report says.

According to the same ARC report, emerging markets are finally automating their warehouses to increase throughput, reliability, and order accuracy.

“In fact, a number of warehouse automation and control vendors attribute much of their revenue growth to projects in the emerging markets of Latin America and Asia,” says ARC.

It has its challenges but it has its rewards

Challenges remain in warehouse automation that cut across industries, including the F&B sector.

For manufacturers, there is increasing pressure to cut costs while improving customer service in a bid to remain competitive.

There is also an increasing number of SKUs which often forces an expansion of a distribution center’s capabilities.  

Other challenges include increasing return rate, shorter delivery times and the need to have a full market presence.

But certainly there are advantages to warehouse automation and it comes in the form of the more obvious efficient operations which results to higher productivity at lesser operational costs and a much greener processes.

Warehouse automation increases throughput capacity. Less manpower means less overhead costs. Materials handling, too, becomes consistent resulting in less spoils and therefore less returns.

It is also greener since an automated warehouse is generally more compact and with the use of advanced technology there is less requirement for paper. Equipment used are sometimes energy efficient, too.

Automation has also led to improved safety on the work floor because of less human involvement. In addition, correct tracking and tracing makes for timely restocking and accurate product delivery. And existing ERP system can be incorporated seamlessly with a warehouse management and control software.

Vietnam’s showcase in F&B warehouse automation

A major supplier in warehouse automation, Germany-based SSI-Schaefer, has showcased its industry capabilities by providing intelligent automation solutions² to Vinamilk, one of the leading dairy companies in Vietnam.

The project, a high-bay warehouse (HBW) and conveying system with tailored system components, is one of the most modern distribution center in the country.

Built directly next to the production buildings, the 32-meter high HBW has single deep, 27,000 storage positions.

“The connection from production is facilitated by a rail-guided vehicle (RGV) system,” describes Carsten Spiegleberg, general manager for systems & automation, Schaefer Systems International, in a SSI Schaefer video presentation.³ “Because of the high throughput and the future expansion plans doubling the overall throughput, carriers which can carry two pallets at a time have been implemented.”

The fully-automatic RGV system is the heart of the automated material flows in the warehouse and provides all demand positions in the distribution center with the pallets from production.

“The daily throughput amounts to 2,000 pallets coming in to the warehouse, 2,000 leaving the warehouse each day,” says Mr Spiegleberg. “The system is designed for expandability to double throughput as well as capacity.”

SSI-Schaefer states that with their double load handling devices, the RGV vehicles accept the pallets and serve the transfer spurs for the eight storage and retrieval machines (SRM) of the high-bay warehouse.

To illustrate further, according to SSI Schaefer, “all functional units are pre-mounted in basic modules and can be loaded comfortably in a standard shipping container.”

“This was another reason why the entire project could be handed over ready-for-use including construction within only 18 months after receiving the order. The loop of the RGV system transports the retrieval pallets to a conveying system which serves two shuttle cars and one vertical conveyor. Each shuttle car serves eight shipping lanes. Each lane services a batch of up to 16 pallets which is loaded on the dispatch truck.”

Giving more details, the company says that the vertical conveyor moves the pallets into the second floor to the picking locations for the case picking. “The conveying system transfers the pallets with two shuttle cars to the 53 double-deep picking lanes. The picking is done using 12 electric pallet movers. The employees get picking instructions via WLAN on the integrated pick-terminals of the picking cars. The cases are then picked from the front pallet on pick buffer lanes directly onto the shipping pallets.”

Mr Spiegleberg also highlights that one special feature of the system is the warehouse management system WAMAS. “In this particular case, WAMAS interfaces with the ERP system of Vinamilk as well as the plant master in the production provided by Tetra Pak,” he explains.

“This tool interface allows Vinamilk to trace products throughout the production process all the way to distribution loading to the truck.”

“The pick phase is automatically replenished from the automated warehouse. Case picking is done using RF technology, pick-to-pallet transported by order-picking truck, and picked pallets are then fed back into the automated warehouse,” he further illustrates.

With automation, Vinamilk is able to fully utilize available spaces for other purposes.

“The integration features allow Vinamilk to significantly reduce their need for manual transport between the processes and at the same time reduce any errors that are made during picking, sortation and loading,” concludes Mr. Spiegleberg.

In a presentation⁴, Mr Nguyen Quoc Khanh, executive director for research & development at Vinamilk, enumerated several key benefits attained by Vinamilk since the launch of its Binh Duong plant. They included remote checking and fixing of technical problems, less production down time, increased production quality, lower production cost, reduced risks related to human error and trimmed manpower to about 50%.

References

[1] Warehouse Automation Market Experiencing Dramatic Growth. https://www.arcweb.com/press/warehouse-automation-market-experiencing-dramatic-growth

² ”High Tech Distribution Center for Dairy Products in Southeast Asia Industry”, Case Study, Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (Vinamilk), My Phuoc (VIE) - http://media.ssi-schaefer.de/fileadmin/ssi/documents/media/case_studies/en/cs_Vinamilk_en_01.pdf

³ “Fully Automated High-Bay Smart Warehouse in the Food Industry” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HWppMe06WQ

⁴ “Case Study: Vinamilk’s MEGA (Smart) Factory” by Mr. Nguyen Quoc Khahn, Executive Director, Research and Development, Vinamilk - http://iotbusiness-platform.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Nguyen-Quoc-Khanh.pdf?utm_source=vinamilk