One of the best ways to increase the efficiency in your warehouse is to automate as much as possible within your industrial shelves. This does several things for your warehouse:

• It eliminates the chances of human error in processing an order
• It allows you to focus your team’s skills on more complex tasks
• It speeds up your warehouse processes

Not only are there efficiency benefits, but there are monetary benefits as well. With automation, you’ll be able to invest once and depend on that machine to continue doing that task until you stop it (with the right maintenance and occasional repairs, of course). That lowers the amount of money you are paying human labor for menial tasks and use that talent elsewhere. The money saved is a direct increase to your bottom line.

Warehouses are always looking for new and better ways to automate and many are using robotics more and more within the warehouse walls. That’s the case for DHL. They are currently testing the idea of pairing their picking team members with robot carts. The carts follow the pickers through the industrial shelves as they gather items for the order, putting them into the cart. When the order is complete, the robot cart heads out to the packing area while another cart joins the picker to start the next order.

So what are the advantages of using a robot cart?

• It’s faster. Instead of wasting human effort in transporting items to the packing area, they can focus on picking the next order while their cart travels across to the packing area.
• It’s safer for products. Employees aren’t trying to balance items in their hands while picking the next item, avoiding human error when it comes to handling products and reducing loss from damage.
• It’s safer for employees. Less handling of items and not moving heavy carts themselves helps reduce the instance of injury and accidents on the warehouse floor. In turn, this can help a warehouse’s bottom line by reducing the used of sick time and worker’s compensation claims.

Are robot carts something you’d like to use in your warehouse? They aren’t an item currently available in the RMH Systems catalog, but it may be only a few years before they make an appearance.

Robot carts aren’t the only way to automate moving products off of your industrial shelves, though. You are likely already using these kind of improvements in your warehouse without realizing it; after all, even the use of computers in our warehouse is a form of automation. They track our inventory, alert us to reorder status, and even help automate the process of scheduling our teams. There are other automation ideas you can put in place without making the jump to robotics, too, including light-up item location for picking or even just installing conveyor belts to move product around.

Whatever you choose to do for your warehouse, RMH Systems is here to help. Contact our team to talk about how we can help automate your warehouse today!