Strategic and operational insights

ZEBRA PRESENTED great insights on how to expand your warehouse and manufacturing operations while reducing exposure to cost whenever possible and without undermining workflows.

Technology is the solution that will ultimately impact your front-line workforce and operations, converting unpredictable demands and a limited workforce into efficient, effective workers who get the job done, no matter what. By adopting or upgrading technologies will ensure you remain competitive in a dynamic marketplace. 

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Daniel Dombach, Director, Industry Solutions, EMEA, Zebra Technologies (L) and Stephan Pottel, EMEA Practice Lead Automotive Manufacturing at Zebra

The webinar was presented by Stephan Pottel, EMEA Practice Lead Automotive Manufacturing at Zebra; and Daniel Dombach, Director, Industry Solutions, EMEA, Zebra Technologies.

Stephan has 20+ years of industry experience in bringing new technologies to early adopter customers, while Daniel has served as Director of Industry Solutions since joining the company in 2014.

Robotics

Daniel explains: “We all see economic uncertainties and see how that is impacting our business lives. We also see a shortage of labour in all areas and a struggle to keep staff happy.”

Indeed, employers ran active job advertisements for 2.25 million jobs in the week to July 9 — 53% more than in the equivalent period in 2022, according to the latest UK data from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. This makes keeping people doubly important.

“Attrition rates are around 30% in the warehouse these days,” says Daniel, who advocates the use of better tech to help make employees work easier and more satisfying.

Zebra acquired Fetch Robotics two years ago and has been busy integrating these AMRs into its broad tech offering.

Since the acquisition, Zebra has launched new AMRs including FlexShelf which increases productivity up to three times by augmenting workers with robots that are 60% faster and carry larger and heavier payloads than other robots. The company has also introduced the RollerTop Guide AMR designed to automate point-to-point materials movement with a mobile conveyor section that can transport items to/from fixed conveyor systems and FetchCore Fulfillment software which optimises picking operations.

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The key is increasing warehouse productivity.

Daniel explains: “It is not about replacing workers with these robotic solutions, particularly in the case of Fetch Robotics. It’s all about freeing the time of the worker from relatively simple things like moving loads from A to B, and moving on to more qualified work.

“It also helps that the AMR solutions are easy to deploy and quick to scale.”

The robots are versatile also. The same robot that carries out putaway tasks in the morning, can be used for dunnage removal in the afternoon. In each case, they are relatively simple processes that are tying up valuable human resources. 

One interesting example cited in the webinar is for a distributor of electrical components who replaced conveyors and manual handling for an AS/RS to Packout Delivery process with robots. The Fetch solution proved both lower cost and more flexible, as well helping the firm to claw back some floor space.

5G

As well as dealing with modern robotics, the presentation delved into key enabling technologies such as 5G. Stephan outlined how 5G is important in extending bandwidth so new capabilities such as augmented reality can be incorporated seamlessly into operations.

For example, when a global car manufacturer was struggling to download car OS to models on the production line via Wi-Fi, it implemented a private 5G network to handle the workload.

5G also powers extremely low levels of latency, which is important for real time communication between systems.

Stephan continued: “Zebra is a pioneer when it comes to industrial mobile devices. We have tested and supporting the majority of our devices with the main 5G network, so with Zebra devices, you are ready to go.”

Questions

The guys answered some great questions, helping out attendees with concerns and queries. For example, one attendee expressed the concern that new tech would simply add maintenance requirements to the mix.

Stephan replied: “Yes and no. Of course any new tech requires maintenance, but on the other hand the maintenance of the robots, at least for Zebra, is all covered in the service contract.”

Check out the webinar for a host of other questions tackled by Zebra.

You can watch the webinar and Q&A session online at tinyurl.com/ZEBRAwebinar

There is no cost but registration is required. You will receive CPD points for watching the webinar.