IKEA warehouse Germany
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These advantages can be seen by the introduction of an automated warehouse at the IKEA warehouse in Germany. IKEA produces a vast array of often bulky products through massive stores that move huge numbers of products. The problem of meeting delivery demands in such a competitive industry has been overcome by the automation of its warehouses previewed in a video on the internet.
The ability of the company to stock a huge number of products that can be accessed through the press of a few buttons allows the company to meet a massive consumer demand in the most efficient manner possible. As noted in a case study on IKEA, a summary of profits for the company is from: “Low costs through huge volumes of flat packaging”. ‘Flat packaging’ is crucial as it maximises the number of products that can be transported by trucks or containers which dramatically reduces freight costs. In the warehouse, these products can be stored in huge numbers that can be accessed with incredible efficiency and allows the company to meet its own expectation of ‘always having a product available’ and delivering said product with significant efficiency.
The ability of the company to stock a huge number of products that can be accessed through the press of a few buttons allows the company to meet a massive consumer demand in the most efficient manner possible. As noted in a case study on IKEA, a summary of profits for the company is from: “Low costs through huge volumes of flat packaging”. ‘Flat packaging’ is crucial as it maximises the number of products that can be transported by trucks or containers which dramatically reduces freight costs. In the warehouse, these products can be stored in huge numbers that can be accessed with incredible efficiency and allows the company to meet its own expectation of ‘always having a product available’ and delivering said product with significant efficiency.
We can see from the previously mentioned video, that the huge warehouse is filled with a massive number of rows of shelves that are extremely high. The operator enters the product code to a terminal which locates the desired item for retrieval. The machinery moves up and the down the aisles and shelves to locate a product and uses forks to remove pallets on which the products sit and relocates them to the retrieval bay. The machinery returns the pallets, which unrequested stock may or may not be still on, to its set location. Therefore we can see from this example that all items when requested are retrieved with great efficiency, speed and safety.
UTS library
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A more recent local example of an automated warehouse is in the storage of books by The University of Technology's (UTS) library at Ultimo. The University has moved 325,000 library books into a large bunker under the campus where they are being stored in 12,000 shiny, galvanised steel bins. Robotic cranes store and recover the books using radio frequency tags attached to the books.
Students can look through catalogues and place an order into the system. The robots then read the requests and locate and recover them from the five storey storage system. Books are no longer crammed into shelves with all its associated issues such as damage, misplaced books and maximising use of shelf space. The poorly used shelf space can now be used more practically while books can be accessed freely by all. Librarians still hand over and record movements but in a far more efficient manner.
While millions of books still occupy shelves, difficult to store items (such as maps, journals and documents), precious and historic items and very specific research materials are ideal for the underground warehouse. Eventually, further warehousing is expected to cater for more mainstream books as funding allows.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-10/robots-take-control-of-sydneys-hidden-book-bunker/5658334