“ ROBOTS MAKE PEOPLE ’ S JOBS EASIER AND MORE SATISFYING . PEOPLE ARE NEARLY ALWAYS POSITIVE ABOUT THEM ”
TECHNOLOGY & AI
Many of them come from temp agencies , and are on zero-hour contracts , because companies employ changing numbers of people every day . Coupled with the issue of poor wages this has seen the UK struggle a lot more than other countries .”
Scandinavia a boom area for warehouse automation By way of comparison , Harrison points to Scandinavia , where far more warehouse staff are on permanent contracts and work consistent hours . More trust is also placed in them by managers , which alongside a higher base-salary means they enjoy much better staff retention .
Harrison says : “ Also due to the higher cost of labour , Scandinavian businesses can ’ t afford to have huge numbers of warehouse staff . It ’ s not a valid business model for them .”
Because of this , he says , they look to implement automated processes much earlier in their growth cycle , which means that the use of warehouse automation in these countries is far more developed than in the UK .
Traditional automation technology has included the likes of conveyor wave-picking and mini-load or shuttle systems . Harrison says such systems “ are very expensive , inflexible and gigantic ”, and that this makes them unsuitable for the fast , highly reactive world of ecommerce .
“ Over the past few years we ’ ve started to see a huge shift in the types of automation available ,” Harrison says .
Common warehouse automation technologies include :
• Autonomous Mobile Robots ( AMRs ). This type of robot has an independent understanding of its environment , and can and move through it independently .
“ ROBOTS MAKE PEOPLE ’ S JOBS EASIER AND MORE SATISFYING . PEOPLE ARE NEARLY ALWAYS POSITIVE ABOUT THEM ”
RICK FAULK CEO , LOCUS ROBOTICS
110 March 2022