In many warehouses, humans lift truck operators move pallets and materials from loading docks to pallet racks. Often the product they are moving ends up being touched three or more times before it is finally put away. There is a better method than to utilize your valuable human workforce for repetitive, mundane tasks such as this. Implementing an OTTO robot may eliminate long horizontal transport of materials and allow your people to work on higher value projects. In other words, OTTO will allow you to work smarter, not harder.
So, how does an OTTO Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) work? Quite simply, human operators place pallets on a Pick and Drop (P&D) stand where an OTTO, equipped with a lift, picks it up and delivers it to an appropriate destination. This allows your traditional material handling operators and equipment to stay close to the warehouse racking and not spend so much time driving back and forth from the dock to put away locations. The time savings alone may be many man-hours.
By automating material delivery with an OTTO AMR, you will also reduce your overall material handling equipment traffic, leading to positive results such as the following:
- Less wear and tear on material handling equipment
- Fewer accidents and less product damage
- Lower headcount for specific tasks
- Increased labor efficiency
- Reduced downtime
- Improved real time operational throughput
Additionally, OTTO robots are capable of more than moving material from one stationary platform to another. OTTO’s platform may be integrated with stretch wrappers and conveyor systems.
Here’s an example of a manual workflow: Pallet is picked from racking, then is brought to a packing area. Pallet is processed for shipping and is brought to a stretch wrapper. Pallet is stretch wrapped and is brought to the dock door and then finally loaded onto a truck.
By implementing an OTTO Pick and Drop stand with a stretch wrapper, the new workflow becomes: Pallet is picked from racking to a P&D stand, pallet is processed for shipping at the pack area and pallet is loaded on to a truck.
In this scenario an OTTO brings the pallet from racking to a pack area, picks it up when it’s processed and brings it to a stretch wrapper and autonomously triggers the wrapper. Once that process is complete, OTTO picks it back up and brings it to a P&D stand at the dock door.
How do you know if you’re right for this solution? ELT Systems Group can offer free consultation to evaluate your facility and operation to determine if this solution is right for you. If you have multiple shifts, labor issues, material flows that bring products across long distances OTTO may be right for you.
Contact the systems group or Jason Dodge directly for further information and to get started on your project today.
Jason Dodge Automation Manager | Systems Division Eastern Lift Truck Co., Inc. Cell: (609) 605-1043 Email: jdodge@easternlifttruck.com
