DHL tests robots for potential warehouse roll-out

By Nye Longman
Share
DHL has announced that it is testing two types of robot in one of its warehouses, the two models, known as Baxter and Sawyer, will assist staff with han...

DHL has announced that it is testing two types of robot in one of its warehouses, the two models, known as Baxter and Sawyer, will assist staff with handling package assembly and packaging.
 

“Historically, the distribution environment has been difficult to automate using traditional industrial robots, which do not respond well to variability,” explained Matthias Heutger, Senior Vice President for strategy, marketing and innovation at DHL.

“In our recently published DHL Trend Report “Robotics in Logistics”, we found that 80 percent of logistics facilities today are still manual due to the complexity of the operations. As technology improves however, the logistics industry is benefiting from the adoption of collaborative robots to improve efficiency.”

 “Baxter and Sawyer robots are some of the most advanced collaborative robots on the market, and we plan to deploy them in a variety of packaging and inventory tasks that will allow us to use our employees for higher value work,” added Adrian Kumar, Vice President of solutions design North America at DHL Supply Chain.

“By deploying these robots to work in tandem with humans, we can ensure our production lines are adjusting to changes and running more efficiently year-round.”

Markus Kückelhaus, vice president innovation and trend research at DHL Customer Solutions and Innovation, added: “The logistics industry has been unable to leverage smart, collaborative robots until recently, and the high performance Sawyer robot is changing the game in what we can and cannot automate.”
 

Supply Chain Digital's June issue is now live. 

Follow @SupplyChainD and @MrNLon on Twitter.

Supply Chain Digital is also on Facebook. 

SOURCE: [Air Cargo News

Share

Featured Articles

Kinaxis: The 'Customers' Choice' for Supply Chain Planning

Kinaxis has been recognised as a Customers’ Choice in the 2024 edition of Gartner’s ‘Voice of the Customer’ for Supply Chain Planning Solutions

Why Coupa has been Named a Supply Chain Leader by Forrester

Coupa has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Collaborative Supply Networks, Q4 2024, demonstrating its prowess facilitating supplier collaboration

Trick or Treat: Inside the $11.6bn US Halloween Supply Chain

Supply Chain Digital discovers what spooky surprises lie in store for the supply chain and logistics professionals who make Halloween happen every year

Why Vanderlande has Agreed to Acquire Siemens Logistics

Logistics

Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE: Sustainability – The Agenda

Sustainability

Maersk & Danone: Partnering Towards Greener Logistics

Sustainability