As part of 2024 The Year of Warehousing, UKWA launched a competition for students of warehousing and logistics to win an £800 bursary. We were delighted both by the response and the calibre of submissions, from students at universities across the country, with shortlisted essayists hailing from Bath, Manchester Met and Warwick. Challenged to write about the future of warehousing, a common theme emerged – perhaps unsurprisingly, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
One finalist posed the question, ‘When will we be able to turn off the lights in warehouses?’, asking whether AI was indeed the shape of the future, with robots operating in unlit, unheated, fully automated environments, independently of people.
Happily, the conclusion was that this was unlikely to happen, at least in our lifetimes. Rather, as I have discovered during my recent Year of Warehousing site visits to some of the sector’s most advanced operators, the vision is to ‘supercharge’ humans, not to replace them.
While machines are fast and accurate, they don’t have the problem solving skills of people nor the ability to react to unforeseen circumstances. Neither do they necessarily have the capability to handle the most delicate of goods or intricate packaging, without human supervision or intervention.
Of course, it is people who develop, programme and maintain machines, but it’s more than that. Far from being edged out, people working with technology reportedly feel more empowered. Their performance is improved, the most tedious aspects are undertaken by machines, and so job satisfaction is enhanced.
Karl Hodkinson at Howard Tenens explained that the introduction of cobots at one of their warehouses had been met with initial scepticism by the workforce, but by involving front-line team members in the project and providing training and practical experience of working with ‘Chuck’ machines (each has been given a name by workers!) attitudes have been transformed and people won over, at the same time as increasing efficiency, safety and productivity.
AI will become the foundation for improving operations, as long as warehouse operators use it for what it does best. The next horizon for this technology is the wider use of AI-driven simulation, described as ‘core to innovation’ at DHL by the super smart software engineers I met there, during my Year of Warehousing visit. AI can identify ‘blind spots’ in existing processes, predict potential problems ahead of time, plan for change without disruption to productivity and verify outcomes in site specific scenarios.
This presents huge opportunities, helping warehouse operators avoid disruptions and informing decisions on using less energy, making better use of resources, taking care of workers, or serving customers more efficiently. In short, AI in warehouse robotics can enable more consistent, efficient operations while allowing human employees to perform at their best best.
This is why AI is the future. But don’t expect the lights to go out anytime soon.
Clare Bottle
UKWA, CEO
Comments are closed.