Logistics and robotisation: history in the making

Over the years, logistics has integrated increasingly complex processes. The challenges are to reduce the cost of order preparation, to speed up operations and to improve the quality and reliability of services. As in the automotive industry several decades ago, automation and robotisation have become a means of meeting these expectations in logistics. But it is also a question of reducing the drudgery of work and coping with the increasingly frequent peaks in activity. Robotisation is therefore transforming logistics into an industrial function. The term most often adopted for these new facilities is 'logistics platforms'.

Automate to deliver faster

In a context of accelerating flows and commercial reactivity, robotisation is in many cases part of the solution. For example, the Beaumanoir group, which operates through its subsidiary C-Log in Poupry (Orléans), Saint-Malo and Cambrai, has embarked on a vast plan to develop robotic solutions for its e-commerce business. The aim is to deliver orders placed before 7pm the previous day before 10am. To this end, €10 million is being invested in the 18,000 m² site in Poupry. This investment includes a Miniloads TGW storage system and small robots designed and manufactured in-house by the group in Saint-Malo with the aim of collecting multi-item orders. The robotic solution saves one day's picking time and rivals the performance levels of major e-retailers. 15,000 items are processed daily in this installation, which aims to reach 50,000 items per day shortly.
Coping with order picking peaks and meeting deadlines even during the busiest periods were the objectives that prompted Coverguard to install a Goods to Man robotic solution in part of the brand new logistics site in Mionnay, near Lyon.
Robotisation has its place in the clothing sector, in B to B, but also, on a large scale, in B to C food. This is the choice made by the e-merchant Picnic for its new 42,000 m² platform in Utrecht (Netherlands). With 200,000 storage locations in 3 temperature zones, this fully automated site has a capacity to process 150,000 orders per week.

The robot becomes collaborative

Are the days of the machine replacing the human for good? It is not certain, but the collaborative trends are interesting to observe. The new Proteus robot, designed and deployed by Amazon, has the task of transporting the product storage units (the GoCarts), no longer just in a dedicated area, but in the middle of the pickers. They live in the same physical environment as humans, which is a great novelty.
Other robots have the task of carrying the heaviest loads. This is the case in Veolia's furniture waste recycling sites, such as the one in Bègles (Bordeaux). It is also this load-carrying function that Leroy Merlin is trying to solve through robotisation. Leroy Merlin, which has automated part of its 72,000 m² Réau site, is actively working on setting up robots to help pickers carry heavy products. These solutions will be similar to exoskeletons that will accompany the pickers and enable them to reduce the arduousness of the work.
Robotisation prefigures the logistics platform of tomorrow. Artificial intelligence, exoskeletons, and inventory drones are also means that will make logistics facilities sustainable in functional and economic terms. These new technologies are the subject of numerous experiments, notably in the Log!ville laboratory, located near Antwerp. This 2,500 m² demonstration centre, financed by the Flemish Institute for Logistics and the ERDF, is the main place in Europe where the solutions of the future can be tested in real situations. The stakes are scientific, but also economic and social.
Robotisation is positioned in this context as a lever for economic development, but also for industrial and logistic relocation.

Sources :
Stratégies Logistique 18 May 2022
Entreprendre 27 July 2022
L'Antenne 23 May 2022
ZDnet 24 June 2022
Ecommerce mag 20 July 2022
La Tribune 28 June 2022