Moving materials within an industrial facility, whether a factory, processing plant, or warehouse, has traditionally relied on conveyors, human-operated forklifts, and manual labor. significant manual work. But just as the efficiencies brought by automation have been at the center of manufacturing production operations for decades, the industry is now seeking to apply increasing levels of automation to material handling in order to improve the operational efficiency of end-to-end throughout an installation.
This focus on automating material handling occurs because “material handling consumes approximately 25% of a workforce’s time, 55% of the space in a facility, and 87% of the time production,” said Greg Gernert, vice president and general manager of the motion control business at Rockwell Automation, during his keynote presentation at the Motion Users Group meeting at Automation Fair 2024. These Statistics show “why it’s important to focus on motion automation to help improve these numbers and increase efficiency.”
Gernert added that Rockwell Automation’s vision is to help the industry achieve “end-to-end autonomous materials management with centrally managed automated processes and data-driven insights to enable continuous optimization.”
But what does it look like?
The first step is to consider intralogistics as part of the connected factory. Gernert noted that the industry has focused on reducing islands of automation in production operations, but it is not just individual automated devices and systems that require attention.
“It’s also about how you connect the manufacturing floor to your warehouse, and inbound material management to your warehouse, and your warehouse to the manufacturing line,” he said. Considering the time and space spent on material handling, “if we can reduce it by 10%, that’s real money and real results that can be driven across your entire organization.” »
Effect of Automated Material Handling on Labor
Looking specifically at how intralogistics automation can improve productivity, Gernert highlighted an example of the impact on the industrial workforce. The big questions here involve answering questions like: Do we have enough staff? Are they performing tasks that truly create value for the organization? How can we improve their workflows to move from a team bringing materials to a production line to reassigning those individuals to higher value positions within the company?
Citing an example of deploying Rockwell Automation technology to answer these questions at a Tier 1 automotive OEM, Gernert said that manufacturer had four manufacturing lines in its facility, but due to labor shortage issues of labor, he was only able to hire three of these lines. But by repositioning the resources they had in the factory using logistics automation technology, “they were able to immediately get a 25% increase in production by reassigning those people to that fourth line,” said Gernert. “This is the kind of result that automation of production logistics can bring.”
The Rockwell Automation Logistics Technology Stack
Explaining how production logistics technologies extend automation to every stage of material movement, Gernert highlighted Rockwell Automation’s technology stack that enables automated production logistics and orchestrates operations and material movement together in a single operation .
Key technologies here include:
- Autonomous movement of materials using OTTO Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) to improve the efficiency of material movement and reallocate labor previously used to move materials.
- Connect islands of automation in manufacturing and logistics with Rockwell Automation’s Connected Enterprise approach.
- Direct material movement and traffic management using MES (Manufacturing Execution System) and MOM (Manufacturing Operations Management) software.
- Centralize device and system data to gain visibility across one or more installations to improve decision-making through data analysis. This includes data from MES, ERP (enterprise resource planning) and WMS (warehouse management systems) to drive end-to-end optimization, planning and change management.
- Simulation and emulation to reduce the risks of deploying intralogistics technologies and guarantee the highest return on investment.
“The future of industrial operations depends on how we make these technologies work together, from smart devices to software,” Gernert said.
Other success stories of automated logistics
Beyond the example of a tier-one automotive supplier cited above, Gernert highlighted four other instances where Rockwell Automation’s logistics technology has delivered results across the industry:
- AMRs were deployed to relieve skilled operators of material handling duties at a Fortune 500 aerospace company, reducing required manual labor by 20% and saving the company $1.3 million.
- Creating a virtual replica of an AMR system in a distribution center and using artificial intelligence (AI) for optimal routing of AMRs, which resulted in a 13% increase in throughput and enabled the company to save $1 million in reduced material costs.
- Obtained performance insights from an automated consumer packaged goods warehouse system that saved 8-10 labor hours per week per worker. The system providing this information was expanded to over 10 warehouses within 3-4 weeks.
- Created a digital twin to help a retailer quickly design a fully automated material handling system, resulting in a 25% reduction in operations downtime and provided design to scale the system across the retailer’s operations .
These applications all point to an increasingly automated and autonomous future of production logistics, Gernert said, adding a quote from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on the subject: “Automation is only just beginning, the The future belongs to autonomous systems capable of learning, adapting and making decisions. by themselves. »