Drones are Making Soaring Advancements in the Material Handling Industry
The recent announcement by the Department of Transportation concerning the registration and regulation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) shows how these products are making a huge splash in the consumer market. This announcement has increased the hype surrounding this technology, as it is predicted that about 1 million drones will be sold this holiday season.
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This immediately got my attention and provoked the question: What changes will drones make in the Material Handling Industry, both inside and outside of the warehouse?
Let’s take a look at what advancements drones are predicted to be making in the Material Handling Industry in the next few years:
Amazon’s proposed drone air regulations
- Amazon has talked about Amazon Air Prime becoming a UAV delivery candidate, which is 30 minute delivery for customers who live near a fulfillment center. This could drastically change the way small parcels are distributed directly to consumers. You are looking at same day, even same hour delivery. The holdup in Amazon’s progress so far: the FAA will not allow Amazon to continue research in the United States due to the recent crackdown on air regulations. Amazon has relocated its R&D to England for for the time being, but will be looking to implement this idea within the next few years, once the US decides how they want to regulate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s). Just take a moment to think about how this will revolutionize the way inventory is shipped out of local warehouses. This will then create a need to have smaller, more efficient distribution facilities in more places to accommodate the insanely fast delivery promise.
- Qimarox, a material handling equipment manufacturer from the Netherlands, has been researching the use of drones for small parcel palletizing. You may ask yourself, what would be the benefits?
- The use of drones for palletizing would require a smaller footpirnt and would work well in a fast paced environments, such as flash-sales in eCommerce platforms. Thus allowing quick movement of product from point A to point B above all other processes taking place on the distribution floor.
- As drones grow in popularity, their price point is decreasing. This will result in a quicker return on investment when this type of automation is used, especially when you compare it to a full blown palletizing system.
- Lastly, a big draw to the use of drones for palletizing would be that you can turn them on and off for when they are needed. They also have the flexibility to change the software communication. This allows the drones to be used when need and how they are needed at that particular place and time.
- Inventory Management, what a nightmare. Anyone who has ever had to perform inventory tasks in their warehouse knows that this takes a ton of time and is extremely tedious. Well, there is a place for drones to work in this area of the warehouse as well. This can easily be done, here is what you would need; location bar codes on your rack and shelving, a drone programmed to visit inventory locations and an RF scanner attached to the head of the drone. The drone would scan the item location and the item that is there and send the information back to a computer on the floor. This would save countless hours of walking and recounting. Not only would this save time, but it would decrease human error that is involved, allowing a more accurate count of inventory to be recorded.
These three examples show the possibilities that are to come with the use of drones in the Material Handling Industry. Since most of these uses are in the research stage, it is unknown when they will be implemented, but this is most certainly the way of the future for Material Handling. Let us know what you think, do you have any further insight on how drones will change the way we select and ship items from our fulfillment centers or what possible uses can be in addition to those outlines above?
