The Robots Are Coming!

The other night I found myself walking through my warehouse. Something was different. My warehouse seemed cleaner than normal, more organized than I remembered it being and instead of clerks I had androids picking orders. You know, the kind you see in the movies that look exactly like humans but are clearly not. I felt nervous, but found relief when I looked at the communication board. The colorful charts and graphs told me that all my department goals were at 100%. Feeling a sense of ease knowing my department was running so efficiently, I headed to  my office. I walked into my office only to find one of those androids sitting in my chair! He promptly gave me my pink slip and smiled as he said I was no longer needed. I woke up in a cold sweat from this terrible nightmare.

The truth is, automation is nothing new in the warehouse. It is all around us, hidden in plain sight. Items such as that set of rollers that were installed at the end of the packing station to that old tape gun you can never find. So why is it so frightening?

Automation by definition is "the technique of making an apparatus, a process, or a system operate automatically". So why do so many shudder when the conversation topic turns to automation in the warehouse? It has to do with perception. Interestingly enough when I looked up the definition of automation for this post on Google, I was showed this example:
"unemployment due to the spread of automation."

How has Automation become such a taboo word in our industry that somehow it is linked to the downsizing of a hard working work force? More importantly, what can we do to help change this perception?

Well, the how is easy to explain and understand. We automate processes to make them run without our human intervention, thus resulting in the use of less man hours for that particular process. The requirement of less man hours can sometimes reduce the need for man power, and that is what scares people. We can look back at the introduction of robots to the auto industry and understand why people may fear automation. Here we find a case where one robot could replace as many as ten humans. Before one gets to freaked out, we have to remember that warehousing is not the automotive industry and our version of automation will be much different.

Although automation in a warehouse will not be the same as in other industries, the end goal is the same, improved efficiency, higher quality product and a savings in labor and costs. So as creative professional warehouse managers the responsibility lies on us to reallocate those formally used man hours and manpower in such a manner that will benefit our department and our organization.

As professional warehouse managers it is imperative that we continue to educate ourselves on the newest and latest forms of automation and share that information with our team, we certainly do not want anyone being left behind. We must then evaluate this new information and make an educated decision whether or not to implement new automation in our warehouses. Doing some in depth cost analyses is one of the best ways to decide whether or not to move forward with some new forms of automation.


The bottom line is, is that technology is everywhere and it is moving, growing, becoming more affordable, and more accessible at a rate that mankind has never seen before. It is ingrained into our daily life. Here is the US everyone I know has a computer in their pockets capable of giving them the answer to just about every question known to man.

A clever warehouse manager will embrace this wave that is coming, not fear it. It may be quite sometime before every organization has the budget to purchase robots that can perform such tasks as delivering products from  the warehouse floor to the packing stations, but that doesn't mean we should pretend these types of things don't exist. Remembering what I stated in a previous post, we can dissolve fear of the unknown with a little bit of information. 

As professionals in our industry it is our duty to stay informed about new automation technology. To chose not to and to deny ourselves the information that is available we are not only doing a disservice to our organization but we are also failing to be positive mentors to our team members.  We must adapt and evolve with our industry. We all know what happens to a company and it's employees when it chooses not to evolve. Those are the folks who get pink slips handed to them by the androids.

Some related reading:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/22/technology/amazon-robots/


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http://thepallet-jack.blogspot.com/
Feedback is always welcomed!

My name is Matt Austin. I am a Professional Warehouse Manager. I greatly enjoy all areas of warehouse process improvement, and sharing ideas. Please feel free to contact me with any warehouse situations you may be experiencing for some outside perspective. Thank you for reading!