How automation is revolutionizing warehouse cleaning and logistics operations
Ask any supply chain executive which factors have had the greatest impact on their business in the past 10 years, and they’ll tell you how eCommerce and online shopping have grown at an unprecedented rate, how customers (both consumers and businesses) have come to expect near-instant delivery, and how the expansion of global sourcing has added to the volume and complexity of their operations.
To keep up with these changes, warehouse and logistics managers are being challenged to increase efficiency and productivity — to “do more with less”— at a faster rate than ever before.
Unfortunately, while these pressures are mounting, the labor market hasn't kept up with the demand for supply chain workers. In the U.S., the unemployment rate is at its lowest level in 50 years. With supply chain job openings increasing at a disproportionate rate to the rest of the economy, warehouse managers are left scrambling for a solution.
It should come as no surprise, then, that warehouse facility managers are turning to automation solutions to help bridge the labor gap, deploying autonomous equipment and robots to perform repetitive or dangerous tasks while freeing their employees to tackle more rewarding and complex work. In fact, according to a recent Warehousing and Logistics Robots Report from Tractica, the number of robots deployed in warehouses and manufacturing facilities will reach 620,000 by 2021, up from 40,000 in 2016.
Automation delivers additional benefits — reducing errors, boosting productivity and eliminating the risks of illness and injury that come with having employees perform these dangerous or repetitive tasks. While automation has traditionally been applied to tasks such as material handling and automated storage and retrieval, robot cleaners like Neo are being rapidly deployed across supply chain networks to enhance operating standards and accelerate ROI.
Warehouse-ready robot cleaner delivering real-world results
Neo, the autonomous warehouse scrubber from Avidbots, is leading the way in revolutionizing warehouse cleaning. Neo was purpose-built from the ground up with integrated safety features, simple, intuitive controls and precision reporting capabilities that measure the efficiency and productivity you’re receiving from your robot cleaner.
“Our warehouse deals with titanium dioxide (an extremely fine white powder often used as a pigment), and it gets into everything — bearings, rotating equipment, any crevice or crack it can find. In terms of cleaning, this is the toughest environment I’ve worked in over my 30-year career, and Neo handles it better than any other cleaning method I’ve seen.” — Mike Tennant, DSV
Take the guesswork out of cleaning efficiency and effectiveness
Manual cleaning — with walk-behind or ride-on scrubbers — is highly variable, making it difficult to measure and control cost. As Mike Tennant, Operational Supervisor in charge of IT, Maintenance and Building Upkeep at DSV explains,
“Self-reporting is inaccurate, available too late to make meaningful decisions, and in many cases, there is simply no data on the state of manual cleaning operations. Neo’s reporting capabilities have taken the guesswork out of determining floor cleaning efficiency and effectiveness.”
Neo, the warehouse scrubber, provides visual maps and data showing the area cleaned and time spent cleaning, and even calculates a “true performance” metric and cleaning score that helps managers set and track key performance indicators (KPIs). With Neo, measuring and monitoring ROI when cleaning warehouses is easy and objective.
Discover the next wave of warehouse automation
To help you learn more about how Neo autonomous floor-scrubbing robots are revolutionizing warehouse cleaning, we’ve prepared a host of resources for industry professionals:
- Download our Neo for Warehouses product brochure to uncover the features that make Neo floor-scrubbing robots a compelling next step in your warehouse automation strategy.
- Read a deployment case study from Christie Lites – a leading supplier of rental lighting for television, theatre and trade shows — who are boosting operational performance and enhancing customer and employee experience with Neo warehouse scrubbers.
- Download our new eBook, Boosting Warehouse and Supply Chain Productivity with Floor-Scrubbing Robots to learn how leading supply chain and 3PL managers across the globe have realized greater efficiency and productivity by deploying Avidbots’ Neo autonomous floor-scrubbing robots in their cleaning operations.
Ready to share your organization’s productivity challenge? We’d love to discuss how Avidbots and Neo robot cleaners can help you achieve your business goals. Contact us today to find out more.
Related articles
Subscribe to the Avidbots blog!
Stay in the know about all things Avidbots plus the latest industry and technology insights.