by
Gary Burke | Mar 16, 2021
Unprecedented growth demands have prompted retail grocery companies to look for more cost-effective automation solutions. While order fulfillment picking operations are applying a variety of automated solutions, decanting operations are virtually overlooked. Decant represents the second highest labor staffing requirement and is the most hazardous.
![Decant_Newsletter3 Decant_Newsletter3](jpg/decant_newsletter332f9.jpg)
Unprecedented growth demands have prompted retail grocery companies
to look for more cost-effective automation solutions. While order
fulfillment picking operations are applying a variety of automated
solutions, decanting operations are virtually overlooked. Decant
represents the second highest labor staffing requirement and is the most
hazardous.
By 2026, the overall warehouse automation markets will reach
~$30B, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) average of 14% between
2020 and 2026. This market’s growth curve is attributed to
the transition to eCommerce and omni-channel distribution networks. The
automation focus is primarily on autonomous mobile robots (AMR’s),
with eGrocery being the largest category in this market. (Source:
LogisticsIQ)
In 2021, 290 companies (including startups) are offering and/or
developing solutions for goods-to-operator order fulfillment.
Applications of goods-to-operator can range into the millions of
dollars for software and equipment. The solutions vary in technology,
with the end goal of improved efficiency by reducing the need for
operators to do a lot of walking. Most of the seven figure
solutions reduce half of the labor requirement for order picking tasks.
The established providers and dozens of startups backed with hundreds of
millions of dollars from investors have begun to develop robotic piece
picking to automate the remaining picking/transfer of item(s) task.
Robotic order picking is expected to further reduce staffing from 27% to
about 6% of the total fulfillment labor cost. The final addition of
piece picking robotics will automate 90% of all order picking.
Before advanced automated fulfillment systems was implemented, staffing
required for order picking in grocery warehouses represented 55% of the
total labor requirement, while decant operations accounted for 25% of
labor costs. But so far, investments for decant have trailed
behind in the order fulfillment sector.
What is
Decant?
Most of the technologies applied to automate grocery distribution rely on
uniform storage and handling containers such as storage totes. Decant is
the process of removing items or inner packs from their original
shipping containers and placing them into totes for automated storage
systems that selectively move the totes to pickers and robots for order
fulfillment.
While automation for order picking/fulfillment has grown rapidly, decant
has been overlooked likely due to a combination of timing and the
development of existing technologies. Most of the
goods-to-operator automation has been a progression from conveyor based
designs and technology. The evolution of automated storage and retrieval
systems (ASRS) and AMR’s to service the goods-to-operator stations
has been the engineering focus to date, and in reality needs to be in
place before the decant process can be fully developed. The recent
advancement of vertical AMR robotic ASRS systems and floor-based AMR
solutions have provided major advancements, lowered costs and cut
installation timelines. Some companies have already revolutionized
the storage concept for goods-to-person, and AMR robotics offer
additional modular and scalable solutions that have reduced
justifications from three to four years to under two
years.
The expansion of goods-to-operator solutions sets the table for robotic piece picking to evolve faster.
Robotic piece picking costs are justifiable when combined with low cost
goods-to-person or robot solutions. With the successful automation of
the highest labor cost (fulfillment), automating the decant process will
be the next process for the industry to
address.
Decant is a New Automation
Target
In 2020, articles about major online grocery retailers discussed plans to
automate decant operations. FANUC’s system integrator
Robotica, Inc. was already way ahead of the game. In 2017, they
demonstrated piece picking soft goods at the Promat tradeshow - long
before other companies had this capability. By 2018, Robotica pivoted
away from piece picking to focus on pack out (ePack) and decant
automation. Few solutions existed in these areas, but Robotica’s
years of development related to the Automated Box Opening Technology
(ABOT) and handling of goods helped.
Efforts really accelerated in 2020 due to COVID-19 pressures on
eCommerce. Robotica’s first prototype ePack™
demonstrated with very high success. For the first time, a shipping box
went into the decant area and its contents were carefully packed into
tote sub-compartments.
The successful demonstration of complete decant automation providing
integrated replenishment for various automated goods-to-operator systems
is directly attributed to Robotica’s advanced major patents for
decant technology. Through continuous development and testing for
specific grocery applications, Robotica has produced robotic decant
systems that can offer labor paybacks in less than 12
months!
Leveraging Existing Technology
Much of the technology for automated decant was already developed and in
Robotica’s IP portfolio. Many of their box opening
technologies have earned domestic and international patents that support
the evolution of automated decant from automated box opening, including
ABOT® which is a key component in automating decant.
Now, ABOT M1 is available with state-of-the-art FANUC industrial
robots, metrology and the AI capabilities to support decanting of
products into totes. ABOT M1’s computational and sensing
power makes it the industry’s next-generation intelligent platform
for automated decant processes, providing easy integration with
goods-to-person AMR systems and other automated processes or work
cells.
“Continued development of the ePack technology has produced
improvements and new capabilities with a tremendous road map for
automated pack station clearly on the horizon,” said Jay Dugat,
president, Robotica, Inc.
Robotica has definitely cracked the code and developed a complete
automated solution for decanting goods-to-operator systems.
Standard units of ABOT M1 and ePack are in production, and further
developments have led to new systems for 2021 that provide increased
handling abilities, higher rates, smaller footprints and lower
costs.
Automated Decant Compared
to Piece Picking or Cut and Dump Methods
While piece picking offers discrete unit handling and
the ability to produce efficient product stacks in totes and
sub-compartments, it’s not flexible enough to handle a variety of
SKUs, nor achieve desired rates. Robotic piece picking is limited to a
restricted subset of SKU’s, and without AI capability, the picking
system’s ability to recognize individual units when packed in a
shipping box is also limited.
Tooling requirements also restrict the items that can be picked. Consider
the vast range of constantly-changing product packaging, from one-gallon
jugs of milk, to vertically-oriented thin foil packages of dip mix, to
blister packs of cosmetics. Above all, piece picking suffers from
low rates for decant requirements. A typical piece picking decant
robot cell would do well at about 600 inner pack units per hour. Larger
or heavier items would slow down the system due to tooling actuation
times. So, a single piece picking cell performing decant may only
average 500 inner pack units per hour of limited package
configurations.
According to Robotica’s Dugat, their ePack single cell can handle
up to 20,000 inner pack units per hour with far fewer package type
limitations, including cylinders, foil packs and cartons.
Cut and dump methods can be cost-effective but have
several limitations. In fact, Robotica offered this technology
over 10 years ago for a narrow SKU selection in a semi-automated repack
process. However, the down side to cut and dump is the vast array
of SKU’s required for current decant processes. In the
cut and dump method, items free fall into the tote with the likelihood
of damaging products and packaging. This typically occurs when
commingling SKU’s in a single tote, and it really causes problems
for glass items and heavy liquids with fragile seals. In addition,
scattering free falling units do not typically yield high efficiencies,
and inhibit loading multiples of inner packs or different SKU’s
into the tote. It is also unable to support multiple SKU’s
into subdivided totes.
Successful Box Opening with AI
Reliable box opening
is critical for automated decant operations. Previous automated box
opening for picking or decanting processes included operator
intervention. That meant that workers were required downstream to
address any issues with box opening. However, as more companies
experience difficulties hiring and retaining workers to do this process,
it’s clear that reliable automated box opening is a “must
have” for success.
Robotica’s industry leading second-generation ABOTm-1 for automated
decant is a natural progression following years of experience designing
and producing multiple commercialized automated box opening
technologies. Now, the ABOTm-1 uses data elements to successfully
open boxes without damaging the inner pack contents. Generation
one systems required an operator to input data for various packages, and
used a manual database to maintain the information. However, it
quickly became clear that a manual database would not be effective for
many eCommerce warehouses that process tens of thousands of SKUs with
constantly changing packages and shipping cartons. Plus, in
today’s fast-moving distribution culture, maintaining a manual
database with this magnitude is far too labor intensive and time
consuming.
The ABOT Generation II uses autonomous learning of box dimensions and
cutting metrics. This method provides effective data management, and the
ability to accurately open an ever-expanding range of box sizes and
configurations while protecting the inner packs. The AI module
allows for continuous learning and improvement that can be shared across
multiple ABOTm-1 machines in a network.
ABOT +
ePack - The Ideal Decant System Solution – Features &
Benefits
The combination of ABOTm-1 box opening with decant and a FANUC robot into
ePack technology is offered in two standard modular production models
for quick delivery and installation. ABOT+ ePack systems are
easily configured and integrated into micro-fulfillment and large DC
applications. For example, a single ePack-Micro processes up to 400
shipping cases per hour, and a single ePack-DC handles up to 800 cases
per hour. Higher volumes are achieved using multiple cells, and
options include automated receiving, de-palletizing, dimensioning,
weighing and scanning.
Robotica’s decant automation can be integrated with robotic
material movement or an existing conveyor. The ePack technology
simplifies material movement for decant. Replenishment supply (donor
cases) and order inventory (totes) can be handled, buffered, and
managed.
The ePack systems easily interface with various AMR or goods-to-operator
robotics without special programming or interface equipment. In
addition, ePack is adept at receiving and delivering inventory totes to
and from static shelf positions or onto a takeaway conveyor. And,
ePack can access totes randomly for buffering, SKU matching and/or
compartment matching.
Pre-programming ePack for specific SKUs or item shapes and case sizes is
not required. First time cases and contents are automatically handled
based on rules constantly fine-tuned by ePack’s AI.
Multiple caseloads of inner pack unit items can be placed in a tote or
sub-compartment using ePack’s volumetric efficiency, which
automatically matches sub-compartment sizes with the unit batch size.
The ability to consolidate items helps replenish partially filled
totes; ePack can create empty spaces or voids with partially filled,
randomly located items in a destination tote and then fill the void
created with additional replenishment inner pack items.
ePack automatically handles an extremely wide range of unit shapes, sizes
and packaging including cans, bottles, free form shapes and blister
packs. Orientation of unit items is variable based on best fit or
overridden (top of unit up) for items prone to leaking. Glass items and
fragile unit items are loaded gently. Empty shipping cases and tops are
automatically transferred to recycling.
In conclusion, it’s important to recall that in terms of labor
costs, decanting is second only to fulfillment jobs. And, almost
every product ordered on-line originates from a shipping box that needs
to be opened before those items or inner packs are removed and placed
into totes that hold product for order fulfillment. At a
time when major investments are being made to develop automated picking
operations, Robotica’s new ABOTm-1 represents the only complete
automated decant process technology!
If you’re looking for an ROI homerun in
robotic automation, Robotica’s ABOTm-1 decant solution
including FANUC’s robotic slugger will knock it out of the
park!