Not too long ago, making decisions about a company’s sustainability was a fairly straightforward process for most facility managers. Switching to LED lighting, upgrading HVAC systems, and streamlining production by moving to a more integrated process controls architecture, were some of the initiatives a company may have undertaken in pursuit of improved sustainability.
But today it is different. For industrial and manufacturing companies, the integration of sustainability projects is more likely part of a broad-scoped strategy to optimize all facets of the business, from facility operations through process functions, manpower and distribution. Such a strategy takes into consideration a company's higher-level, long-term business goals. This may include communicating the organization’s awareness of its environmental impacts, its initiatives toward energy conservation, and its focus on healthy working conditions for employees by promoting a working environment that utilizes sustainable materials and processes.
Every business is facing the call to convert to sustainable business practices. A recent Kearney survey finding shows that 80 percent of buyers consider the environmental impacts of their purchases. Responding to this, manufacturers continue to build sustainable practices into their operations, creating value for their customers, themselves and their stakeholders.
Distribution, and the Three Pillars of Sustainability
This is particularly relevant with supply chain companies. According to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals State of Logistics Report 2022, “Industrial, manufacturing and logistics companies, as primary consumers of energy and a major historic source of carbon emissions in the global economy, must play a leading role in partnership with sustainability. Better synchronized supply chains, aligned to shared sustainability goals, are essential to reaching greenhouse gas reduction targets.”
Transporting goods is a big contributor to global carbon emissions, but warehouses, and particularly refrigerated warehouses, are some of the most energy intensive industrial facilities on the planet. Energy consumption represents the second highest operating expense in refrigerated facilities, trailing only labor costs, according to industrial energy management firm, Cascade Energy. In food distribution and grocery warehouses, refrigeration uses about 50 percent of total energy use, and 65 – 75 percent in fully refrigerated facilities.
As warehouses seek to reduce the cost and environmental impact of their distribution operations, while faced with upscaling to meet growth targets, three solutions should always be evaluated:
1) maximizing the use of space to reduce the need for storage and the energy use it requires; 2) automating manual processes that will permit goods to be moved more rapidly and safely through the facility, minimizing energy use and carbon emissions; and
3) optimizing the design and function of automated material handling systems for operational efficiency.
Essentially, these initiatives would progress the Three Pillars of Sustainability, which form the foundation of sustainability goals. Those being: a) the Environmental Pillar – initiatives that reduce the carbon footprint of the business; b) the Social Pillar – initiatives promoting the wellbeing, health and safety of employees and customers; and c) the Economic Pillar – initiatives that ensure businesses can thrive while making these positive impacts.
Order Fulfillment
Embodying these factors is order fulfillment. No sector of distribution has seen as much metamorphosis over the past two decades in support of sustainability as automated goods-to-person picking solutions for fulfillment of light goods in small-quantity orders.
The true benefit of automated goods-to-person order fulfillment is that it allows inventory to be stored in a highly condensed low-footprint space, and then picked and packed with the operator remaining relatively stationary. Pickers are efficient when they are picking, not walking or trying to locate products. Goods-to-person technology presents considerable opportunities for embracing the sustainability.
To better put this into context, we will examine two automated goods-to-person systems that significantly leverage sustainability, and how they fit in with the Three Pillars of Sustainability: The latest vertical lift module (VLM) and horizontal carousel (HC) from Modula – a company which has been designing and manufacturing automated storage and picking solutions for manufacturing and distribution for more than 30 years. Capable of handling thousands of different SKUs, these VLMs and HCs allow inventory to be stored, picked and packed with a very high level of efficiency, while integrating many aspects supporting sustainability.
VLMs and HCs – Environmental Sustainability
With automated fulfillment systems like the Modula VLMs and HCs, the Environmental factors are generally most recognized and associated with sustainable benefits. Here are some of these systems’ key Environmental factors supporting sustainability.
Optimized Space
Adaptable Configurations
The modular, scalable design of these latest VLMs and HCs allows them to be easily installed and implemented in any existing or greenfield warehouse or manufacturing facility. They function for both high and low-ceiling height applications, and facilities with unusual configurations. These systems permit the flexibility to easily be extended or contracted as needed to accommodate changes in SKU counts and throughput volumes, including for storage of both ambient and temperature-controlled products between 35.6° F and 77° F.
The VLM utilizes the available room height from floor to ceiling, allowing for items to be stored up to 52 feet high on a very confined footprint. The same concept is used inside the VLM: shelf compaction is maximized according to product height, ensuring that tray utilization, usually just 40 percent in traditional static racking facilities, increases to 90 percent. Where ceiling height is limited, such as in an existing brownfield facility, the HC is designed for use in these operations.
Minimized Energy Use and Energy Recuperation
These VLMs and HCs only consume energy when the operator activates the systems to deliver a tray containing items to be picked. Otherwise, the VLM or HC is electrically dormant, with very little energy consumption.
Eliminated CO2 Emissions from Forklifts
VLMs and HCs eliminate the need for forklifts and their emissions.
VLMs and HCs – Social Sustainability
The benefits of wellbeing, health and safety for personnel operating the VLM and HC are Social sustainability factors that are less well recognized, but nevertheless, very welcomed. Here are the key Social sustainability benefits afforded by these VLMs and HCs.
Ergonomics
Incoming goods are inventoried into the VLM or HC. As orders are required to be filled, the items are automatically retrieved from the storage system and brought to the picker at an ergonomic receipt station, where items are then picked from partitioned trays. Since the picker does not have to walk, the focus at the pick station is on high productivity.
Inventory is delivered directly to operators without exposing them to moving parts or requiring them to use heavy machinery. The systems retrieve trays with the stored items and deliver them to the user at the optimum ergonomic retrieval height.
The VLM is capable of presenting trays internally or externally. Internal bays are best for limited floor space applications. External bays offer optimum ergonomics for operators, as well as adapting picking aids, like cranes or mechanical manipulator interfaces such as anthropomorphous robots.
Picking Productivity
To support high picking productivity, the operator uses an HMI copilot controller, and products are picked from trays with the scan of a barcode. These features eliminate the need to search for items and ensure that the right item is delivered with the order, significantly reducing picking errors, and increasing productivity and efficiency.
With simple visual picking aids, operators can quickly and easily identify the items needed to be picked or replenished, and greatly reduce mispicks. These include X-axis LED bars, alphanumeric pointers, laser pointers, put-to-light and external picking monitors.
Multiple HCs, referred to as “pods”, can be combined to achieve higher picking performance, using Modula’s WMS to create a batch of orders that can be filled at the same time. Operators only visit each SKU location once during each batch, increasing accuracy, reducing picking times and increasing productivity by as much as 65 percent.
With traditional warehouse shelving, a picker can pick up to about 40 lines per hour. With these VLMs and HCs, that rate reaches 150 – 250 lines per hour. One operator can do the job of what was previously done by 3 or 4 workers.
VLMs and HCs – Economic Sustainability
The remaining pillar is Economic sustainability – initiatives that ensure businesses can thrive while making these positive impacts. With Modula VLMs and HCs, these benefits are immediate and ongoing. Following are some of the key benefits.
Reduced Storage and Transportation Costs
Less space is needed, in many cases 90 percent less. The costs associated with off-site facilities for storage, and transportation between location facilities is reduced, or even eliminated.
Image 5: Consolidated storage and picking reduces the need
for off-site storage. (Image courtesy Modula)
Minimized Returns
Better ergonomics improve working conditions and reduce sick-days and turnover. Picking aids improve picking accuracy, minimize returns, reduce the additional costs of shipping and packaging waste, which support a more efficient operation.
Improved Security
Despite implementation of conventional security procedures, valuable items sometimes end up going somewhere other than their intended designation. The same occurs for accidental release of wrong, obsolete, expired or on-hold products. The VLMs and HCs decrease the costs associated with inventory risks by increasing inventory security.
Inventory of goods within the VLM and HC is being stored in a safe and secure environment, permitting user authentication with badge, EKS and RFID readers. Access to products can be configured to admit only authorized operators, and WMS can keep track of SKUs stored in the units. This means no more missing parts taking up inventory space.
Image 6: HCs provide safe storage, reducing inventory loss. (Image courtesy Modula)
These VLM and HC units trace the movement of items coming in and going out, consequently, the tasks associated with inventory monitoring are all but eliminated. That saves on time and resources, and the expense of hiring someone who specializes in such matters of securing parts against theft. By housing them in an enclosed machine with limited, and traceable access, these losses drop precipitously.
Sustainable Distribution and Manufacturing
A growing number of companies are treating sustainability as a critical objective in their strategy and operations to increase growth and global competitiveness. This trend has reached well beyond the small niche of those who traditionally positioned themselves as “green”, and now includes most prominent businesses across a multitude of industry sectors.
Sustainable changes should focus not only on equipment, processes and the environment, but also on the people working within these environments, and how their employee experience can be improved.