Robots Edge Closer to Unloading Trucks in Amazon-Era Milestone
Robots Edge Closer to Unloading Trucks in Amazon-Era
Milestone
New Siemens, Honeywell devices work at least as fast as
people. ‘The job is miserable inside that trailer.’
By Thomas Black May 3, 2019, 2:00 AM PDT
As FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. beef up
automation to keep pace with surging e-commerce and a potential threat from
Amazon.com Inc., they’ve been stumped at a crucial stage: loading and unloading
trucks.
Robot makers are getting close to solving part of that
puzzle.
Siemens AG and Honeywell International Inc. have built
machines that pull packages from the back of a tractor-trailer and place them
on conveyor belts, whizzing the parcels off for sorting. Making robots that can
load trucks is more complicated, although clearing that hurdle isn’t far off.
“The biggest challenge in our world is: Every single
package is different in size, shape, weight, color, material,” said Ted Dengel,
managing director of operations technology at FedEx’s ground-delivery unit. “It
makes it a very tricky problem.”
The devices, unveiled at a recent automation conference
in Chicago, hold out the promise of increasing productivity while reducing the
need for one of the most grueling jobs in logistics. Couriers are relying on
automation to grapple with the rise of online shopping, which is fueling record
demand but pressuring profit margins. Amazon’s plan to handle more of its own
shipping and offer more one-day deliveries is only upping the ante.
Automated unloaders took years to develop and still
haven’t been perfected, reflecting the difficulty of working with an array of
packages that are stacked differently from truck to truck. The machines also
need space within logistics hubs and warehouses that already are packed with
equipment. The Siemens contraption requires modification of a truck’s trailer.
Honeywell’s doesn’t, but isn’t as fast at unloading.
Honeywell’s apparatus is a behemoth on wheels that has a
bank of suction cups to grab packages stacked high. A portable conveyor catches
or scoops them up from the trailer bed. It works in most flat-floored trailers
and unloads as fast as a person can -- but without the back pain and
exhaustion.
“I can speak from first-hand experience from developing
this machine: The job is miserable inside that trailer,” said Matt Wicks, vice
president of product development at Honeywell’s Intelligrated unit, which
focuses on warehouse automation. “Getting people out of the trailer and on the
dock side managing several of these machines is a huge factor as it relates to
employee satisfaction and retention.”
Siemens took a different approach. A rolling belt must be
permanently installed on the truck trailer’s floor with packages loaded on top.
When the trailer is at the loading dock, a large machine is attached to the
belt and packages are pulled in and sent to the sorting hub. Unloading a
standard trailer takes about 10 minutes, compared with approximately an hour
for one person moving the boxes.
FedEx began searching six years ago for ways to automate
trailer unloading and recently began testing two competing machines, said
Dengel, the operations-technology director. One device is further along, and
FedEx plans to buy two of that model and start using them in the field over the
next year, he said. He declined to name the manufacturers that the Memphis,
Tennessee-based company is working with.
UPS also is working to automate unloading, spokesman
Glenn Zaccara said, declining to provide details. The Atlanta-based courier is
in the middle of a three-year, $20 billion technological makeover to keep pace
with online retail growth. Over the last five years, the company’s union
workforce has increased 14 percent because of rising package volume, Zaccara
said by email.
Solving the three-dimensional puzzle of loading a trailer
is tougher than for unloading one. Yet Dorabot, which has backing from Chinese
e-commerce titan Jack Ma, is testing automated loading technology with two
customers.
The startup’s robots use artificial intelligence and can
load 400 parcels an hour into a trailer, filling 60 percent of its capacity --
in line with what a person can do -- said Chief Executive Officer Spencer Deng.
Dorabot expects to improve speed by about 50 parcels an hour, and fill 80
percent of a truck’s capacity, before going to market within a year and a half,
Deng said.
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