DHL and Robomotive have implemented a robotic picking cell at the DHL Supply Chain campus in Beringe. The pickingcell features an advanced vision system and can process up to 600 boxes per hour. "This picking robot takes over repetitive work so that our people can concentrate on more complex things," says Robomotive.
The robot at DHL has a reach of 3 metres and can lift up to 120 kg, reaching 4 pallets and 25m of pick front on a flow rack with one robot. The robot picking system scans the location at the time of picking and can identify individual boxes based on this. Teaching and master data are not necessary. This allows items to be exchanged quickly. The adaptive combination of robot, vision and gripper allows the robot to mimic human eye-hand coordination, eliminating the need for products to lie neatly in place.
Responding to demand
"Without reprogramming, the items in the flow racks and on the pallets in the picking cell can be replaced with new runners," says Tjalling de Vries, Innovation lead at DHL Supply Chain. "This allows us to respond even faster to changes in demand, for example in response to sales promotions or consumer trends."
Full automation
The robot cell is an extension of an already deployed mechanisation of the outbound process at the DHL location in Limburg. For hard-running items, full automation has now been achieved. Sebastian Bolt, DHL Supply Chain site manager: "From receipt of the order, boxes are automatically picked, labelled, sorted and transported to loose loaded container. It illustrates our focus on innovative customer solutions."
Generic solution in a traditional warehouse
For Robomotive, the project marks a definitive step as a company to introduce robots in a warehouse environment as well. The robotics solutions provider has had similar applications running for some time, particularly in production environments for picking loose items from a bin (bin picking). DHL wanted a generic solution in a larger application area in a traditional warehouse with flow racks and pallets.
Robomotive delivered the robot cell turnkey. When deployed in regular daytime shifts, the payback period is around 3 years.
