CeMAT Insider

As warehouse management solutions (WMS) evolve to become more efficient, digitisation and automation are realities that every logistics business must embrace in order to survive. But many logistics service providers and distribution centres today – in particular, the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) – still operate largely manually.

Believe it or not, warehouse automation is not a recent innovation. In fact, the first automated guided vehicle (AGV) was invented back in 1953, while the first automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) was installed in the 1960s.

Warehouses are one of the most critical links in a supply chain. Storing and retrieving products to fulfil customers’ needs, wants and desires, your warehouse is the greatest tool you have to either satisfy, or totally disappoint, those who are eagerly waiting for their latest purchase.

During the CeMAT AUSTRALIA 2016 Exhibition, we spoke with Vivid Industrial’s Head of Business Development, Samuel Redmond about the future of industrial lighting and how they can save businesses costs in energy consumption and maintenance.

The digitisation of everything is upon us, so it’s now an imperative for businesses to digitise their manual processes to remain relevant to their customers.

“What do we need to do to help customers face the challenge of omni-channel?”

Michael Kemeny, Business Area Manager – Australia at Knapp posed this question at the CeMAT Knowledge Theatre to demonstrate the importance of placing customer demands at the heart of logistics automation. 

When it comes to electricity costs within Australia, it’s easy to see why many people have taken a dim view.

Electricity prices have risen somewhat dramatically over the last ten years, with a 90% increase in costs from 2010 to 2015. That’s a period of just five years, and costs are still set to rise.

It might sound as though it comes straight from George Orwell’s 1984, but John Collyer, Country Manager at Apex Supply Chain Solutions has quite an interesting take on managing assets in distribution centres.

You may have heard about the Hawthorne effect before, but essentially it's “the alteration of behaviour by the subjects of a study due to their awareness of being observed.”

“For those of you familiar with manual warehouses, the main issue is travel. Walking across the floor and manually picking goods. So how can we tackle travel?”

Pas Tomasiello, Director of Integrated Systems Group at Dematic asked during his presentation at the CeMAT Knowledge Theatre.

A lot of businesses today are omni-channel, so they have eCommerce as well as traditional brick and mortar stores. So to Michael Jee, Sales Director at Vanderlande Industries Group, there is no one size fits all solution for distribution centres.

“eCommerce is becoming a huge growth market, and one of the things, apart from the fact that we all need clothing, is the fact that men are spending more online.”