As eCommerce business continues to grow, customers are looking for even faster delivery of the goods they purchase. As such, businesses are constantly looking for ways to optimize their warehouses to speed up order fulfillment. One way to achieve this is through goods-to-person automation. This automation technology helps streamline the process of stocking, picking, and shipping items, allowing businesses to reduce labor costs and free up warehouse space.
Goods-to-person automation works by utilizing automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to move items from storage locations to human operators. The robots then drive up to an ergonomic workstation and present items in containers or on shelves for easy human pickup. By eliminating the need for humans to manually search for items on the ground or in shelving aisles, goods-to-person automation allows warehouse staff to work more quickly and efficiently. In addition to reducing labor costs associated with picking, goods-to-person automation also reduces energy costs associated with moving people around a warehouse facility. By using robots instead of manual labor, companies can save time and money by not having to pay employees overtime while they walk back and forth between storage locations. AGVs are more efficient since they can travel faster than humans can walk, reducing the overall time it takes for one pick cycle.
Goods-to-person automation also helps improve workflow within warehouses by freeing up space that was once used for storing inventory or materials on shelves or racks. These freed-up areas can be used for other purposes, such as stocking new products arriving from suppliers or staging larger orders prior to shipment. Additionally, goods-to-person automation increases safety within the workplace as employees no longer need to spend time searching through cluttered aisles of inventory or lifting heavy items off high shelves themselves — tasks that are easily accomplished by robots with minimal health risks involved.
Using goods-to-person automation helps businesses optimize both their labor force as well as their warehouse space usage — all while ensuring employee safety and enhancing customer satisfaction by increasing order speed and accuracy at scale. Companies should consider implementing these solutions if they want to maximize efficiency in their warehouses — especially those with large SKU counts and frequent customer orders.
ABCO Systems offers a variety of goods-to-person solutions that can easily be implemented into your warehouse with little to no disruption to your daily workflow. Contact us to see how goods-to-person technology can optimize your warehouse by decreasing labor and increasing space.
*Image depicts Addverb Technologies