MHI Solutions Improving Supply Chain Performance
Wearable technologies for warehouse and distribution center operations have been around for more than a decade, but it’s only in the last five years, as the tech has matured, that their adoption has become more widespread and real‑world efficiencies are being seen.
Wearables for picking and/or putting come in a variety of configurations. They include lightweight devices that are worn as rings, mounted on gloves, secured on the wrist like a smartwatch or even as glasses. In these forms, they improve workers’ safety, mobility and flexibility by allowing the use of both hands for picking and other tasks.
Other wearable technologies include exoskeletons, which enhance workers’ ability to handle heavy loads or to place items in hard‑to‑reach locations. The use of exoskeletons reduces the risk of back, shoulder and other muscle injuries. Smart helmets, equipped with sensors and communications technologies, can send alerts when workers fall or are too tired to perform tasks safely. They can also sense when an environment becomes dangerous for humans due to the presence of some dangerous gas, or because temperatures become too hot or too cold for people to work safely.
Several manufacturers produce wearables for warehouse workers that can work with several different software systems. Other companies produce both software and wearables for their systems.
Wearables for Batch Fulfillment
Much of the current activity in warehouse wearables focuses on the picking and putting side as warehouse managers look for ways to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their operations. “Wearable technologies allow for a more dynamic, scalable and fluid approach to order fulfillment,” said Michael Wagner, solution design engineer, Americas, at MHI member Kardex Remstar.
With wearable technologies, workers can pick and put items faster with increased accuracy. Wearables can also reduce the distances employees must walk through a warehouse, and decrease the number of repetitive strain injuries caused by holding a barcode scanner for long periods of time.
Software developers and technology companies have taken several different routes in designing wearable systems.
Kardex has developed the Wearable Task Assistant (WTA), a wrist‑worn or glove‑mounted device that provides step‑by‑step guidance through the picking and putting process. The WTA technology, which shares data via Bluetooth, is designed to handle batch order processing, although it can also be used for individual picking in aisles as well.
When batch picking, workers wearing the WTA scan a QR code on a stationary screen located at the machine’s access point. The WTA then displays all the essential information about the pick, including the product information, the number required and the trolley where they will go. After workers make the pick, they press the stationary screen to confirm the action.
The WTA then displays the ranks (bins) on the trolley where the workers should place the items and the number that goes in each rank. After placing the product in a bin, workers scan a QR code on the rank to receive a confirmation on the WTA screen that they have done it correctly. If the put is incorrect, they will receive an error message. The WTA’s immediate feedback improves pick accuracy.
Wagner noted that it’s easy for busy workers to put the wrong item in the wrong bin, which can result in mistakes and unhappy customers. With the two-step confirmation process, however, workers can achieve both high volume and high accuracy.
One capability that Kardex can now offer to customers because of the WTA system is combi‑pick. “Say we have four orders that require the same part. With the WTA you can acknowledge the pick pull of 10 products and then distribute those 10 across four different orders,” Wagner said.
Another advantage of the WTA wearable technology is that workers can learn the system quickly. It’s also easy to implement the system since the devices connect via Bluetooth instead of a typical hard‑wired, IP‑based network. “WTA can be deployed in an hour instead of days/weeks waiting for cabling, network configurations and physical light installations,” said Wagner. Once the system is in place, it takes only about 15 minutes to add a new product to it.
Wagner said that WTA technology is especially valuable for companies that have previously taken steps toward automation. “This is a great way to get more out of what you already have,” he said. “Workers are already using computers and looking at screens, so they can wear the computers right on their wrist and be faster.”
Empowering Human Workers
Wearable technologies can change the way that humans and robots interact when picking.
“A lot of the [pick]offerings now out in the market basically have a screen attached to a robot that gives the human worker instructions. That means the human is always locked to a robot and has to keep peering at the screen to get instructions. If they forget what they are supposed to be doing, they have to walk back to that screen,” said Jay Link, chief commercial officer at MHI member Onward Robotics. “Wearables allow us to keep the instructions with the human so they can keep moving and always have that work in front of them. That gives them an extra degree of freedom.”
Onward Robotics has developed its Meet Me™ person‑to‑goods solution to take advantage of this freedom. “Our Pyxis software treats humans and robots as independent agents of the system, and we are scheduling humans and robots to meet at particular places to pick orders,” said Link. The system is based on proximity and priority, and any human can address any robot as directed by the system. So, when a particular item needs to be picked to fulfill an order, Pyxis will send the nearest human to meet the nearest Lumabot (Onward Robotics’s AMR) with an order container for that item.
“If I’m in an aisle I might get instructions on my wearable that say “Go down to this bay and meet this robot, which will have a particular identifier on it. I pick the things and then get them into the order containers on the robot,” Link said. The user interface with the wearable is very intuitive and can display images of the item to be picked if the warehouse has those photos available. The Lumabot incorporates put‑to‑light shelving, which directs workers to the proper tote, shelf and quantity of each pick.
Pyxis integrates with the Warehouse Management System (WMS) so it can prioritize orders and assign picking tasks to workers by customer and/or by the time that the orders need to go out. Communication between the software and the robots and the software and the wearable is done via Wi‑Fi and through Google Cloud.
Onward Robotics does not make the wearables themselves, but leverages Android‑based tech available from other manufacturers, which warehouses may already be using. Its system is also designed to work with a warehouse’s existing layout without requiring many extensive renovations. “We are leveraging the infrastructure that they have to help them move up the productivity curve,” Link said.
The Meet Me system increases the productivity of human workers, who no longer have to push a cart or walk long distances through a warehouse to meet a particular robot, but move between robots as they work. “The system is saying, ‘We know this worker is at this location because she just picked something there, and there’s another robot with a high‑priority order that is going to be over in the next aisle. That worker is closer, so we’re going to send the work instructions to her,” said Link.