3 Brilliant Ways to Automate More Tasks in Your Warehouse

Every warehouse or distribution center is looking to boost speed and efficiency and to save labor and cost. But many are missing out on some easy ways to get ahead.

In this article, we’ll take a look at three smart and innovative ways to immediately increase your warehousing speed and efficiency by automating more of the scanning, tracking, packing, and the loading and unloading tasks you need to perform.

It’s all possible by deploying machine vision technology on your conveyor lines, on your forklifts, and at your packing benches, so let’s get started and take a look at what you can do with this labor- and cost-saving innovation.

1. Pack 33% Faster with Automated Packing-Bench Workflows.

Busy packing benches are one of the last opportunities to gain speed and efficiency as you prep shipments to leave your warehouse, but they’re a great place to start if you want to get an easy win and make significant gains.

One way you can do this is mount and install machine vision sensors above and around your packing benches, to help your packers automatically scan and verify every item, ensure the correct items are packed for each order, and even perform label checks before sending packages off to be shipped.

Warehouses that have deployed this technology in their packing workflows have been able to pack shipments 33% faster, with fewer errors, all by removing all the manual scanning and minimizing the juggling of barcode scanners and packages at their packing benches.

Instead, they use an advanced machine vision sensor, which is easily configured to instantly scan and analyze 1D/2D barcodes and recognize text with optical character recognition (OCR) as soon as a labeled item or package is moved onto a packing bench. This means each item or packages barcode or other identifying information can be captured, decoded and verified automatically, as soon as the barcode or text is within range of the sensor.

As a shipment is packed, the same technology can be used to automatically trigger the printing of a corresponding barcode label, to further automate the outbound packing and shipping process.

Additionally, with machine vision sensors from Zebra Technologies, each device not only serves as a fixed industrial scanner but can be used as a machine vision camera. So, it can perform far more sophisticated checks, such as checking for label presence or absence, label orientation and positioning, correct label text or information, and it can even measure or inspect boxes and packaging.

All of this happens digitally and automatically with hands-free efficiency, so packers never have to use a handheld barcode scanner or manually trigger scans.

2. Automatically Track, Sort and Route Packages on Conveyor Lines.

Another smart way to automate warehouse and distribution center processes is by using the same kind of machine vision technology to create scan tunnels that automatically scan, identify and track items and packages moving on your conveyor lines and help count, track, sort and route them to the appropriate lines and destinations.

Many busy warehouses now do this to help speed up the fulfillment process, eliminate the need to manually transport picked items, inventory or packages to the right locations, and to even sort and route packages by type, size, or other characteristics.

As an example, you can place a scan tunnel above a particular conveyor line to have it automatically identify each item or package and instantly send the results to a diverter, which will send those items to specific stages or areas of the warehouse for kitting, staging, packing, or final shipping.

Zebra machine vision sensors are a great choice for these use cases as well since they are compact and rugged devices that are easily mounted and installed on modular and movable frames that you can wheel into place virtually anywhere on your conveyor lines. As items or packages pass through the “tunnel,” Zebra’s sensors instantly scan their barcodes and labels at high speeds, capturing and analyzing as many as 16 images of each item, with all the right lighting, filters, settings, and decoding algorithms to correctly identify each one.

Each device is very easy to install, power up and deploy, using USB-C, Ethernet or a Serial connection, and it communicates with your conveyor systems, warehouse management systems, and other industrial automation hardware via standard protocols such as USB-C EthernetIP, ModBus, PROFINET, CC-Link, TCP/IP, and more.

3. Create Hands-Free Automated Pallet Scanning from Your Forklifts.

As a final tip for quickly boosting your warehouse speed and efficiency, you can start streamlining and improving your loading and unloading processes by enabling hands-free and automated pallet scanning from your forklifts.

In these use cases, a machine vision sensor is mounted on the front of your forklift and automatically scans pallet barcodes as the forklift approaches the pallet. Your forklift operator never has to get out of the cab and doesn’t have to grab, line up and aim a barcode scanner. Instead, the machine vision sensor acts as a fixed industrial scanner, capturing 1D/2D barcodes, even in low light, and even through shrinkwrap, using hi-res imaging technology as well as built-in lighting and advanced decoding algorithms.

As barcodes are captured, the data can be sent automatically to your warehouse management system or other apps running on a vehicle-mounted mobile computer or on a tablet or handheld mobile computer that your operator is using in the cab.

Since barcodes are captured automatically and reliably, without manual effort, it not only saves time, but it also keeps your forklift operators safely in the cab and off the warehouse floor. Importantly, it also helps you ensure that you’re always moving, loading or unloading the right pallets onto the right trucks or into the right areas for your warehouse.

Get More Insights on Machine Vision for Your Warehouse

To learn more about Zebra machine vision technology and how you can use it to automate and error-proof more warehouse tasks and processes, download our quick guide to Zebra machine vision for warehousing, or feel free to reach out to our industrial automation experts at Graftek Imaging.

As automation solution specialists and system designers, we’re always glad to provide an overview of some of the latest innovations in warehouse technology, and we’d be happy to answer questions or arrange a demo to help you evaluate machine vision for your business. To get started, just contact us now.

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