The Material Handling Blog

Order fulfillment operations play a crucial role in today's fast-paced world, where customers expect their orders to be processed and delivered quickly and accurately. With the increasing demand for seamless and efficient order fulfillment services, businesses are turning to innovative solutions to meet the needs of their customers. One such solution is the use of robotic buffer systems.

The fierce competition for warehouse space and fulfillment labor combined with growing customer demands and ever-evolving technology offerings can make it overwhelmingly noisy and difficult to navigate. That challenge can make it hard to identify the solution that will help companies meet business objectives today and in the future. To add to that complexity, the supply chain industry is ever-growing and evolving. Our team of engineers can help guide through the noise that companies may be facing. Bastian Solutions is eager to attend this year’s ProMat tradeshow March 20-23, 2023, to discuss some of these supply chain challenges with attendees.

Floor or fluid trailer loading is a common task that companies utilize to maximize the cube utilization of a trailer. Unfortunately, the improved usage of shipping space comes with an increased operational cost. At its core, fluid loading is an extremely labor-intensive task that has proven to be difficult to complete and staff. The work environment, ergonomic strain, and monotony of the task lead to high turnover rates and a physically strained workforce. Not to mention the increased costs and reduced throughputs resulting from cases being double handled. Fortunately, Bastian Solutions has addressed these issues with the ULTRA BLUE® robotic truck loader.

For manufacturing companies facing challenges of labor availability, increased order volume and ergonomic issues, an automated palletizing system is an effective method for quickly improving outbound operations. When considering an automated palletizing solution for multiple production lines, there are generally two options: centralized palletizing or local palletizing.

Facing increased customer demand, space limitations and limited labor resources, Friesens Corporation knew they needed to challenge themselves to think creatively about their production efficiency. Increased demand and volume necessitated higher throughput that only more binding lines could accommodate, creating constraints on the existing floorplan and layout. Finding space meant taking a closer look at their production processes.

Over two decades ago, the internet made its way into households, retail, and manufacturing environments, providing a foundation for commerce to occur in a more rapid and convenient fashion. Since then, ecommerce has undoubtedly become the platform of choice for procuring everything from household products to industrial equipment. While present strategies such as warehouse execution systems, sortation, rainbow palletizing, and GTP (goods to person) systems have certainly helped meet these aggressive order fulfillment pursuits, a new robotic solution is proliferating the material handling industry that can further improve operations and customer satisfaction.

Transform warehouse operations to achieve smarter, more accurate, 24/7 order fulfillment with piece picking robotic solutions carefully integrated to support existing workflows and flexible enough to easily grow for future business volume, products, seasonality and new functions. Download this Infographic to learn more.

Hot, cold, corrosive – these environments, and more, inherently require a little extra care when it comes to planning labor and tasks. The same goes for introducing any automated technologies. After all, you need them to operate correctly and avoid any unnecessary damage. Often pulled in to support tasks that need to be reliably repeatable, industrial robotics are an excellent option to support safer work in unique environments. When looking at any robotics application, it’s crucial to consider the conditions under which the task is happening. Whether it’s palletizing, welding, paint, or part handling, the working environment – temperature, exposure, application, and materials – plays a key role in the way automation equipment is selected, outfitted, and designed. Let’s take a look at some of the most common challenging environments and what can be done if the environment is too harsh for most standard industrial robots.

Adapting to uncertain markets, goods to person continues to prove to be a robust foundation for distribution center operations that can grow and adapt.

Putting a bag on a pallet and conveying it is a simple enough concept; however, the variations in product must always be kept in mind if you want to prevent product damage and misaligned pallets. Here are five points to remember when using bag palletizing systems... Read More >>

Compact and scalable automation options are trending across consumer-facing markets like grocery and retail but when it comes to manufacturing, leading advanced technologies are also proving to be foundational for future growth.

In many distribution centers, timely order fulfillment relies on operators having access to empty boxes so that they can quickly complete their picks. This is often completed by building a box and then delivering it to the operator within the pick module. The question is – “What is the best way to get the box from the box erector to the operator?”