Automa­tion in Intralogistics

What are the first steps towards automat­ing intralogistics?

One thing became very clear in the dis­cus­sions: the automa­tion of intral­o­gis­tics has long been more than just a buzz­word. Today, mobile robot­ics can per­form recur­ring tasks with high turnover vol­umes effi­ciently and safely — while remain­ing flex­i­ble for chang­ing processes. But how do you get started?

1. Iden­tify automa­tion potential

First of all, processes and depen­den­cies should be ana­lyzed, key costs deter­mined and pos­si­ble automa­tion poten­tial eval­u­ated. Only when the fea­si­bil­ity is clear and there is an aware­ness of what can be achieved is it the right time to get started. A con­sult­ing part­ner can pro­vide sup­port here with exper­tise and soft­ware. Soft­ware solu­tions such as the supply_it soft­ware pre­sented at the event by MHP can also help with intel­li­gent mate­r­ial flow plan­ning in order to explore dif­fer­ent ideas.

2. Focus on solu­tions, not hardware

The use case deter­mines which solu­tion is right for logis­tics automa­tion. Tying your­self to a sin­gle hard­ware provider should be avoided (key­word: lock-in), as no provider can cover every­thing perfectly.

3. Plan for mixed traf­fic and stan­dards in robot-communication

Scal­a­bil­ity and adapt­abil­ity are cru­cial if com­pa­nies want to posi­tion them­selves for growth and com­pet­i­tive­ness. This means that a wide vari­ety of spe­cial­ized mobile robots — even from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers — may be required for dif­fer­ent processes.

Man­ag­ing this mixed traf­fic, together with the peo­ple in the room, as safely, effi­ciently and with as lit­tle com­plex­ity as pos­si­ble is a chal­lenge that can be solved by rely­ing on com­mu­ni­ca­tion stan­dards such as VDA5050 and inde­pen­dent fleet man­age­ment, such as the Flee­tEx­e­cuter from MHP.

When mak­ing a deci­sion, it is impor­tant to ensure that future growth sce­nar­ios are sup­ported and that the spe­cial qual­i­ties of the robots used are cov­ered. SOTO, for exam­ple, is a multi-load robot. This means that it places high demands on a fleet man­ager to plan its trans­port capac­ity of up to 24 KLTs, which are trans­ported at dif­fer­ent lev­els and in a dou­ble-deep KLT arrange­ment. There­fore a Mas­ter Con­troller in use must be able to plan the orders for full and empty KLTs in such a way that SOTO can work efficiently.

For a SOTO-only fleet, this is han­dled by the SOTO Fleet Man­ager. In inter­ac­tion with other mobile robots, a com­pre­hen­sive third-party mas­ter con­troller is required.

» Would you like to read more about VDA5050-com­pli­ant com­mu­ni­ca­tion in robot­ics? Here is our blog post »

4. Engage Employees

Automa­tion trans­fers tasks from humans to robots. To ensure that such projects are accepted and employ­ees actively con­tribute to opti­miza­tion, it is impor­tant to reduce fears and make the ben­e­fits tan­gi­ble. The aim, espe­cially in high-wage coun­tries with a short­age of skilled work­ers, is to deploy these experts exactly where they are really needed — in pro­duc­tion or qual­ity con­trol, for exam­ple, instead of at the wheel of a tug­ger train.

Does that sound com­plex? Then do it like WAGO did it.

Tak­ing it one step at a time

“Start with the sim­ple and then slowly move towards the more com­plex,” is the key mes­sage from Mar­ius Bunge, Tech­ni­cal Process Engi­neer at WAGO. His com­pany shows how well thought-out plan­ning and a tar­geted approach can lead to success.

Instead of want­ing to start directly on hun­dreds of injec­tion mould­ing machines at dif­fer­ent loca­tions, WAGO relied on a solid foun­da­tion and the pre­cise def­i­n­i­tion of a pilot project: inter­nal data analy­ses, stan­dard­ized con­trol con­cepts and a fea­si­bil­ity study includ­ing a GAP analy­sis formed the basis for the imple­men­ta­tion of the project. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive site was then selected for the pilot project. The first tasks were to solve key chal­lenges such as con­vert­ing data into orders, set­ting up mechan­i­cal inter­faces, adapt­ing proven processes for qual­ity con­trol and defin­ing inte­gra­tion processes.

In the final robot selec­tion, the deci­sion was made in favor of the SOTO robot, which reduces the com­plex­ity of the han­dover sta­tions and works in par­al­lel with the stan­dard process. In a “devel­op­ment zone”, WAGO tested the robot on a sin­gle injec­tion mold­ing machine. The pro­to­type oper­a­tion was grad­u­ally opti­mized and trans­ferred to three-shift oper­a­tion. Today, SOTO is run­ning 24/5 at the Min­den site, ready for scaling.

“From sim­ple to com­plex” — with each step, the team learned, made adjust­ments and trained employ­ees. “Automa­tion is not an easy task, but every­thing gets bet­ter after the first time,” sum­ma­rizes Bunge with a smile.

>Read more about WAGO and SOTO in the case study.

Dur­ing the course of the event, the par­tic­i­pants saw even more exam­ples of the fact that good plan­ning is absolutely essen­tial. Mate­r­ial flow plan­ning or even sim­u­la­tions help to make a well-founded decision.

Con­clu­sion: Start now — with a clear plan and the courage to change

The automa­tion of intral­o­gis­tics is not a dis­tant vision, but a real­ity — and the per­fect time to start is now. The Mag­a­zino and MHP event clearly showed that suc­cess­ful automa­tion starts with a clear, step-by-step approach:

Iden­ti­fy­ing automa­tion poten­tial, choos­ing the right solu­tions and a suit­able part­ner should be the first steps. Ori­en­ta­tion towards stan­dards such as VDA5050 offers secu­rity and flex­i­bil­ity for future scal­ing of automa­tion concepts.

Always keep in mind: automa­tion is a jour­ney that needs to be started care­fully — but every step makes the jour­ney eas­ier. The key is to have the courage to take the first step now.

The future of intral­o­gis­tics won’t wait — start today!