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For anyone stepping into SHIP8 INC.'s, busy warehouse in Port Wentworth, Ga., just a couple of miles from the Port of Savannah, the automation systems look like what you would [...]

This spring will mark four years from when the COVID-19 pandemic put global trade and inventory levels into disarray. At first, it was hard to get inventory, as so many [...]

Extremely high accuracy over inventory sitting in storage is a nice thing to have in a DC, but traditionally it has come at a cost: hours of labor spent hand-scanning [...]

Since 2020 when the pandemic and its shutdowns put a crimp in lift truck sales, the market rebounded, making 2021 a banner year for lift truck sales, as companies that [...]

At Central Steel & Wire's new 900,000-square-foot warehouse and metals service center near Chicago, a fleet of 20 autonomous, side-loading lift trucks glide through narrow aisles of the site's new [...]

As warehouses become more automated, warehouse execution system (WES) software, which focuses on enabling multiple automated systems and related manual processes to work in concert to fill orders, is becoming [...]

The path to automated order picking at Cutter & Buck's fulfillment center in Washington state began in its legacy pick module during the pandemic, when it was highly challenging for [...]

The headlines around the use of lift truck technologies are often about fully autonomous units now being piloted by the likes of Walmart and others. But fully autonomous lift trucks, [...]

Technology is accelerating Lane Automotive's ability to pick and pack items quickly and accurately right when that speed is needed most--during its daily order fulfillment surge. That's when many of [...]

Warehouse management systems (WMS) remain the transactional and process management foundation for inventory control and order fulfillment in most DCs. In recent years, when we have surveyed readers about WMS [...]

Everything runs faster at Boscov's DC in Reading, Pa., now that its conveyor and sortation systems have been replaced and revamped with new hardware, controls and software. Combine this complete [...]

Coles' new, highly automated warehouse in Eastern Australia may be best described as out-sized, starting with the scale of the facility and the automation in it. The grocery retailer's greenfield [...]

Bar coding remains the central technology for data capture, with new wearables and handheld form factors to boost productivity. But RFID momentum is building, and a range of real-time location [...]

Industry analysts predict that after a slow year of growth for warehouse automation in 2023, this year the market will return to faster growth. But our annual Industry Outlook survey [...]

If you thought our annual survey on the outlook for warehouse and DC equipment and systems spending would indicate off-the-charts spending plans, think again. However, you will find interest in [...]

Got a high volume of goods for both store replenishment and e-commerce orders in your order pool and need to batch pick to gain efficiencies, while doing order consolidation in [...]

The linear bar code, and by extension--manually collected bar code data--is no longer the hot new data capture technology for materials handing in warehouses, manufacturing plants or fulfillment centers. That [...]

Yes, warehouse robotics are the biggest thing in automation, but they're not the only tech to drive efficiencies. Orchestration software, better robot/human collaboration, and the application of computer vision to [...]

Lithium power is seen as the fastest growing motive power choice for electric trucks, though it has competition from options including thin plate pure lead and hydrogen fuel cells. For [...]

Multiple motive power technologies are vying for the attention of lift truck fleet operators today, including lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and charging systems, hydrogen fuel cells and thin plate pure lead [...]

The future of automation solutions for warehouses, fulfillment centers and factories is looking more and more mobile. Instead of relying on fixed automation systems, the high-growth niche these days is [...]

Packaging equipment and systems continue to address sustainability, from the growing popularity of systems that right-size corrugated cartons on demand to autobaggers that use kraft paper stock rather than poly. [...]

This year's survey found increasing levels of use for various automation and software technologies, while technology budgets held fairly steady. However, operations face continued challenges around labor scarcity, inadequate warehouse [...]

It's not easy running a warehouse operation in this era of heightened expectations driven by the fulfillment speed and accuracy of major e-commerce players and omni-channel retailers. Many operations, even [...]

Call it flexible automation or warehouse robotics, but by almost any measure, the highest growth categories in the materials handling world are autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and smart pick-and-place robotics [...]

Pick-to-light systems are proven solutions for warehouse fulfillment, especially when it comes to picking small items in a compact zone. In a typical application, a scan of an order tote [...]

Much of the excitement in warehouse robotics is about what robots will be able to do next, like trailer unloading, or parcel piece picking, or autonomous case handling. But plenty [...]

The shape of automated packaging solutions is changing to envision more than the rigid inline solutions at the tail end of the material flow. The welcome upshot: more flexibility in [...]

Cutting-edge pack stations these days feature more than organizational principles. Technology also comes into play from minimizing keyboard interactions, to considering how goods will flow in and out of stations [...]

Last year's resurgent performance among the companies in our annual Top 20 Lift Truck Suppliers list, which was based on 2021 sales, was completely understandable. The overall lift truck market, [...]

The promise of artificial intelligence (AI) and vision technology is starting to make robotic automation of depalletizing and palletizing more flexible, and in the process, opening it up to a [...]

Lift trucks are still the work horses of materials handling. For all the attention on autonomous mobile robots and other forms of robotics, nearly every DC uses manually operated lift [...]

There were hordes of robots at ProMat 2023, but what are they doing for operations in terms of high-value applications, and how do they integrate to help material flow? To [...]

Voice-directed solutions do more than translate pick lists in voice instructions. These solutions are multi-modal, using wearable scanners and Android device screens when appropriate, and have evolved to handle work [...]

Given the ongoing challenge of finding enough skilled lift truck operators, companies can't always count on being able to attract highly experienced, certified operators at the drop of a hard [...]

The narrow aisle trend keeps going strong in warehousing and manufacturing for a simple reason: The cost of space keeps climbing, so companies want to store more goods in existing [...]

To set itself apart from the competition in the food and beverage industry, Hardy Beverages has focused on product innovation backed up by operational knowledge and systems. The family-run business, [...]

On one hand, you have the ergonomics of operating the truck itself, aided by lift truck design features. On the other, you have the proper form when case picking and [...]

First came the realization that a robotic system's software--more so than its hardware--make these systems have an impact on materials handling. Software is what is constantly calculating the optimal routes [...]

Coming off a red-hot year of growth for makers of warehouse automation and automated materials handling systems--the solutions the companies on our annual Top 20 System Suppliers list are known [...]

Voice picking solutions are well proven in the market, prized for keeping frontline workers hands-free and focused on fast and accurate order picking with voice-based directives. But voice solutions today [...]

If last year the spigot on materials handling system investments was nearly wide open, this year a more conservative approach is revealed in our annual survey into automation spending and [...]

Newer forms of data capture technology are starting to see use and promise more operational visibility with fewer manually triggered data collection tasks. This range of ADC solutions can help [...]

Technology like assistive picking mobile robots, intuitive mobile devices and LMS can help overcome labor management challenges. But it also takes best practices like structured goal setting, in-person communication and [...]

Our annual reader survey finds that many are looking to implement or improve their systems across numerous areas, and when it comes to decision factors for evaluating systems, total cost [...]

Inventory and labor have a way of keeping DC managers worried. With labor, it starts with having enough people to get orders out the door on time. With inventory, it [...]

Bar codes, and with them, bar code data collection processes and gear, have been around since the 1970s, but that doesn't make the technology outdated. Most warehouse and distribution processes, [...]

Operational priorities and infrastructure constraints should guide motive power choice, though lithium is seen as gaining ground in the long term. Every option has its strong points, so it comes [...]