Angelos Tsoutsias / Advanced Manufacturing Technologies
Automated Load Carriers: 6 Companies that carve the way for the Industry 4.0 Plant
Automated guided vehicles or Automated Load Carriers are portable robots that self-navigate to move materials around warehouses or other manufaturing facilities. Their role is instrumental in Automated Manufacturing as they shorten logistics times and ensure safety for an otherwise risky process. Here are 8 pioneer companies in the field:
Egemin’s Automatic Trailer Loading and Unloading Solutions are among the finest in their sector, for the following reasons:
- They are designed to handle multiple operations beyond the four walls of the facilities in any pattern, including mixed-orientation and “pin wheeling”.
- They help companies achieve a safe working environment and save on insurance and compensation claims for injuries.
- They reduce labor and operating costs by operating 24/7, practically lights-out and shorten wait times in shipment areas.
- They can handle the widest range of difficult trailer operating requirement and navigate where others can’t.
- They are as flexible as manual lift trucks and don’t require adjustments to existing equipment or installation of additional hardware.
Grey Orange’s aptly called Butler is an artificial intelligence powered goods-to-person robotic technology for inventory management and order fulfillment.
The GreyOrange Butler reduces order fulfillment and inventory replenishment time in warehouses by seamlessly adapting to changing inventory profiles, demand patterns and peaks. It boasts a modular system architecture that ensures bi-directional scalability to increase storage volume or fulfillment throughput independently, by adding more storage racks or robots, as needed.
Vecna Robotics offers a dependable and cost-effective solution supporting fast changing agile manufacturing.
Their intelligent and fully autonomous, mixed fleet of AGVs reliably move materials between production cells, whether on the plant floor or warehouse. These processes are executed safely and with great precession including 24/7 IIoT monitoring.
Vecna Robotics’ fleet is designed to freely navigate dynamic manufacturing environments and configurations, making it easy for the systems to be rerouted and to meet production coordination, material flow and improved throughput, without added cost, disruption or safety concerns.
Aethon’s AGV for manufacturing is the TUG Robot, a safe, connected, flexible and proven autonomous mobile robot for material handling.
The TUG robot reduces the labor costs and worker safety issues associated with moving materials, supplies, tools, and finished goods. It requires no added infrastructure and transports up to 1,400 lbs. Additionally, TUG can connect islands of automation and make processes leaner and more predictable.
Additional features include:
- Integration to ERP / MES systems that allows automatic dispatch and real-time material movement updates
- Command center software that provides unattended management for all robots in the fleet
- Wireless integration to building systems including elevators, doors and the ability to respond to building alarms
Daifuku Logistics Solutions offer Automated Guided Vehicle systems that enable the flexible movement of materials without human intervention for various production phases such as:
- Receiving of raw materials
- Raw material supply to production lines
- Work-in-progress collection from production lines to buffer area
- Work-in-progress supply to subsequent processes
- Mobile working bench of car assembly lines
- Finished product storage into warehouse
- Finished product loading to delivery trucks
Balyo constructs, in conjunction with Linde Material Handling, autonomous vehicles for the smart industry, Driven by Balyo.
Balyo autonomous vehicles are based on standard material handling trucks and can perform in total autonomy all types of tasks, such as:
- Load transfer to floor
- Pick-up and placement of pallets on machines
- Medium and full-height storage
- Logistics train
- Barcode scanning
- Storage in very narrow aisles, etc.
