The comeback of the robots

Intralogistics involves the organization, execution and optimization of a company’s internal material flow, information streams and goods handling with the help of technical systems and services. Its range extends from conveyor belts and packaging technology to software and communications technology. This area is pulsating with activity, driven by the trend toward outsourcing and the related demands for increased efficiency. One good example is the robot: While robots have been playing a major role in production for years, their strengths in logistics have just recently begun to be recognized. Today, robots are being primarily used to lower expenses in the high-cost area of intralogistics.

The parcel robot at the DHL Innovation Center

The parcel robot at work

A detailed look at the parcel robot’s articulated arm and grabber

The fundamental concept of intralogistics

Since 2003, the term intralogistics has become commonly used, replacing the traditional concept of material-flow and conveying systems. Intralogistics involves the organization, execution and optimization of a company’s internal material flow, information streams and goods handling with the help of technical systems and services. The intralogistics sector primarily consists of providers closely linked to conveying and warehousing operations technology. They market products and software, including forklifts Forklift , conveying equipment, warehouse systems and packaging technology.
Intralogistics is more than material-flow systems, though. These systems can also be teamed with information technology and business-administration areas. As a demanding subsection of logistics, intralogistics is a major cost driver at many companies. As a result, intralogistics is to be considered the heart of the operational supply chain and not just an “aide” to supply chain management Supply chain management .

The application areas of intralogistics

The first application area of intralogistics is internal company transports. For transports between production islands, between the warehouse and production islands and within the warehouse, pallet jacks, operatorless transport systems, forklifts Forklift or complex, permanently linked conveying systems like electrical hanging conveyor systems Electrical hanging conveyor system are used.
A second application is transshipping. In the parcel segment, equipment such as simple roller conveyors Roller conveyor or automatic shell conveyors Shell conveyor is used. In cargo depots, goods are transshipped with pallet jacks or underfloor chain systems Underfloor chain conveyor . Transshipping technology is also used in combined transports at transshipping terminals and harbors. Here, heavy transshipping equipment like portal cranes and loading bridges is employed.
The third application area is storage of materials, intermediate products and finished products. A choice must also be made between the types of warehouses as well as the manual and automated operation of the warehouse. An efficient warehouse management system is particularly important in high-bay stores High-bay warehouse .
The fourth application area is to clarify the process of picking Picking . This job is usually done manually. The warehouse and the picking stations are frequently connected, just like the picking stations themselves, by complex conveying systems. The picking process is also frequently supported by picking technologies like pick-by-voice Pick-by-voice or pick-by-light Pick-by-light .
The fifth task of intralogistics is unpacking and packing. Today, numerous machines and robots Robot are already being used in this area. For instance, products are packed into boxes, small packages are stacked onto pallets Pallet or prepared pallets are sealed with foil in order to ensure safe transport.

The right balance of flexibility and automation

The demands being placed on intralogistics are continuously rising: as a result of factors like growing variety, increasing product individualization, reduced in-house vertical integration and rapidly changing production and distribution processes.
These difficulties can be offset through the use of partially or fully automated systems and equipment, including automated high-bay stores High-bay warehouse and operatorless transports. This is already technically possible at today’s stage of development. But these gains are offset by losses of flexibility. This flexibility is needed in order to quickly react to new market situations and varying customer requests at any time. Automation can also be linked to high costs.
Given these parameters, a good material-flow system is one that strikes a balance between flexibility and automation. On one hand, special customer requests are to be addressed to the greatest extent possible. On the other hand, the technical advances of automation are to be exploited.

Full automation in picking

In the area of picking Picking , the strengths of human flexibility generally win out. But there are instances where this is not the case: It frequently makes sense to use the largest possible degree of automation when throughput in the system is high, that is, a high number of individual orders within a short time as well as a large number of different products.
One example of this is the media-sorting facility that DHL Exel Supply Chain officially opened in November 2007 in the German city of Dortmund. The facility was developed in order to provide retailers with fast, comprehensive CD and DVD service. In one hour, 17,500 CDs or DVDs are automatically sorted, labeled, packed and prepared for shipment to retail outlets.
The facility’s main customer is Karstadt Warenhaus AG, a major retailer. Karstadt uses the facility to supply its own department stores and to fulfill its function as a wholesaler for other companies. More than 360 retail outlets owned by a variety of merchants are supplied by DHL in Dortmund.
The strengths of automation are high speed and the ability to offer value-added services Value-added services like automatic pricing labeling on the cover of products. As a result, 600 delivery contracts can be processed simultaneously. Thanks to its fundamental modular design, the system can be expanded without a major effort.

Possible increase in automation for transshipping in courier, express and parcel services

At first glance, it may be surprising that a container Container filled with loosely stored parcels poses a challenge for a robot Robot . But in their classic area of use, the production processes in the automotive industry, robots are involved in repetitive activities and work with exactly the same parts. The different sizes and composition of packages, on the other hand, make it extremely difficult to introduce automation in this area.
Most packages are still unloaded and transshipped by humans. By itself, DHL Express transports about 1.8 billion parcels each year - this involves hard and repetitive work for employees. Over the past four years, DHL and its partners from the business and research communities have developed a parcel robot. This robot was put into daily service in the spring of 2007 at the DHL Logistics Center in Essen.
The parcel robot is the first intelligent system that automatically unloads containers Container and swap bodies that are filled with loose parcels. In the past, this work was always done manually.

The parcel robot’s functional mode

Once a parcel robot has a container Container positioned in front of it, it independently works out the best unloading sequence. It removes the parcels one after the other and places each onto a conveyor belt. In principle, it is similar to the job performed by a human worker.
The parcel robot consists essentially of the following components: a chassis, a telescopic conveyor belt, a 3-D laser scanner and an interchangeable gripping system - consisting of an articulated arm and a grabber.
The robot is positioned over the chassis, which does not have its own drive system. The chassis is connected to the telescopic conveyor belt. This belt is extended electronically, and positions the chassis and the robot Robot in the container Container . The robot is equipped with a passive steering system, but can only move forward and backward - the container must be positioned directly in front of it. This is not a critical matter for application in places such as parcel distribution centers because the unloading situations there are always the same.
In the first step of the unloading process, the 3-D laser scanner examines the situation. An integrated computer then analyzes the sizes of the parcels and determines the optimal unloading sequence.
The articulated arm attached to the front of the robot Robot has six joints and gives the machine its necessary freedom of movement. As a result, the robot can reach every point in its surroundings, regardless of whether a parcel is located at the top, in the middle or on the floor of the container Container .
The grabber itself is attached to the articulated arm and is equipped with suction cups that create a vacuum to clutch and hold the parcels. The grabber also has sensors, giving it something like the “sense of touch.” In difficult situations in which the 3-D scanner cannot provide sufficient data on its own, the data yielded by the sensors are incorporated into the decision-making process.
In principle, the parcel robot works like a person who stands, with legs apart, over the conveyor belt, picks the parcels in front of him and places them through his legs onto the belt behind him.

The strengths of the parcel robot

The parcel robot facilitates a seamless, automated connection between delivery of parcels in a transshipping center and their subsequent distribution. In the past, this connection had to be created manually. As a result of continuous automation, logistics processes can be optimized in the future and workers can be spared from doing physically demanding jobs.
At the moment, the robot Robot does not work as rapidly as a human. But as a result of technical refinements, it can be expected that the robot will soon become considerably faster. In the future, it will unload several parcels at the same time or be able to adapt to the variety of demands posed by distribution centers around the world by using different gripping mechanisms. With the help of RFID Radio frequency identification , the parcel could electronically inform the robot how the individual handling process could optimally proceed.
Today, the public can see another example of the parcel robot in action: at the DHL Innovation Center near Cologne, Germany.

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