Internal warehouse transport for picking

Typical e-commerce warehouse flow

In a typical e-commerce warehouse flow, the pickers move a cart to the designated location and load various products for shipment. The most time spent and the most effort is on the traveling part. We allow pickers to reduce this traveling time and effort by reducing their work area and emphasizing picking and loading rather than traveling.

You can notice above that the length humans need to travel is long and tedious.

Enhanced flow using cobots

The cobots allow pickers to stay in a rather small designated area and load/unload cobots. Most of the traveling is done by cobots making the whole process faster and more flexible. Almost no changes in the warehouse infrastructure are required. Cobots travel automatically between the packaging stations and the area where they need to be loaded with a product. Pickers load the cobot. After the cobot is loaded it moves to the next area for the next product from the order. When completing the assigned orders, the cobot returns to the packaging station for unloading. Depending on the order size one robot can carry 3 or 4 orders at one time.

You can notice above that human travel length is drastically reduced. The robot's travel length might be longer but that adds no cost and it is easily scalable.

100% Automatic picking and replenishing

The automatic picking function can transform your warehouse into an entirely robotized system. The only human effort is required for replenishing and packaging.

Due to AI and an innovative mechanical device, Adiona cobots can pick up, transport, and put back boxes from shelves up to 2m high. Making the picking process 100% autonomous without significant changes in the warehouse structure.

Automatic picking scenario

Preparing the warehouse for the automated picking flow

• The products subject to automation are stored in boxes with a side size of around 50cm. Many products can be stored in the same box.
• Each box is labeled with the product it contains and a barcode attached to it. One box can contain multiple products of the same type or multiple products of multiple types.
• The boxes are stored on shelves up to 2m in height at known locations.
• The order management software knows where each product type is, which box, and which location.
• The boxes for automated picking are stored in an area that will not need human presence at all.
• In the packaging area there are a limited number of shelves to store a number of boxes, let's call it the packaging buffer storage area.

Incoming flow for picking

• The cobot takes the next order from the IT system and identifies the box and its location.
• For each product from the order, pick up the box containing one or many products.
• Transports the box to the packaging
• Deposits the box on the packaging area dedicated shelves.
• Human workers pick-up the product from the box in the buffer storage area to compose the parcel for the current order.
• From this moment, the box can be moved back to its original location.

Outgoing flow for picking

• The cobot takes the box from the packaging shelf in the buffer area.
• Transports the box to the original location.
• Deposits the box on the shelf.

Replenishing flow

• One human operator, calls for several boxes where the stock is low.
• The robots take the boxes from the shelves and bring them to the replenishing area storage buffer.
• The human operators replenish the products in the boxes.
• The robots take the boxes and store them on the original shelves.

The cobots can work during the night so that in the morning all the shelves from the buffer area in packaging and replenishing are full of boxes containing products that need to be packaged or replenished. The operators can be very efficient since there are literally a couple of steps to pick the right product.