Rochester Pharmaceuticals Inc. of the United States is working to prove that AGV robots can complete sorting work in the right application and provide practical experience for full automation of retailers and dealers.

Rochester Drug Corporation (RDC) has an 1,800-square-meter distribution center. In the center of the sorting module at the distribution center, there is a mobile sorting robot named "Adam" that is currently storing four channels of 1,200 capacity units. Sorting distinguishes goods.

When a sorting box for a pharmacy drug order is sent to Adam's workspace, the robot operator Mike Collins scans the bar code and sends an order to Adam. Later, Adam will automatically pass through the work area and use the arm with suction cup to sort the goods into the sorting box. After the order is completed, Adam will return to Colin. When asked whether the cooperation with the robot is accurate and reliable, Colin laughed and answered: "My job is to supervise its execution of orders, although it does not often make mistakes."

The robot was put into use in January 2017 and completed the sorting order test by March. At present, the accuracy of robots is between 95% and 98%, and that of voice-activated assistants is 99.9%. Ritzman said: "If we can put the products on the shelves in order, then the robot can avoid most mistakes in the operation." He added, "If you can then integrate the robot into the automation system, RDC plans to expand to 4 robots, I'm sure it will work."

Breaking the work hard

Although automation is commonplace for manufacturers, retailers and distributors such as Rochester Pharmaceuticals have long completed more sorting modules by continuously increasing their numbers. After all, workers are more flexible and less costly than automation.

However, the old working model is out of date. The new market demand, especially the demand related to e-commerce, pays more attention to the accuracy and completeness of each order. The shorter the time to complete the order, the better. In addition, two-shift or three-shift jobs are more difficult than ever to find a reliable workforce. Therefore, only new automation products can solve the problem of sorting and packaging.

RDC did not plan to use robots in the early days. Just five or six years ago, the Rochester plant was relatively automated, with only conveyors and voice technology. However, with the growth of business, the labor force has become a problem, especially in the second shift, working hours from 17:30 to 02:00. At the time, the distribution center handled approximately 30,000 jobs per night and required 45 workers. Slow moving goods on the middle floor were the hardest to sort.

“It's a busy job, and there's a large flow of people,” said John Brunnan. “Many times, the work has been arranged, and workers have not gone to work as required. This kind of human error rate is as high as 40% per year.” For this issue, RDC plans to expand its operations in Rochester and choose to establish a highly automated distribution center in Fairfield, New Jersey.

Help sort cargo

What happened next was the same as the well-designed story. RDC's former CEO Dodd shared his confusion with a pharmacist client and casually said "Someone should invent a robot." Coincidentally, the son of pharmacist Tom Garruzzo is a robotic expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and a co-founder of IAM Robotics. Although Garuzo did not pay much attention to material handling, he went to Rochester and learned about the sorting process of slow-moving goods.

Although speed is also part of the study, for now, sorting 100 items per hour has met the RDC's needs. Of course, the robot finished product is not completed in one day, and it is considered that this is a new solution designed for the RDC working environment. Ritzman said: "After repeated communication and debugging, RDC has been satisfied with the status of the robot."

Remodeling the distribution process

It is not easy to be the first person to eat crabs. RDC adopted a "climb-walk-run-jump" gradual process to minimize the risk of failure. In the first few months, IAM's employees were responsible for all technical issues on site and trained Colin, the robot operator. After the training was completed, Colin began to do it himself. Despite this, IAM insists on real-time feedback from the cloud data, keeps monitoring robot performance, and reports important indicators to the RDC.

The next step is very clear. First, RDC intends to double the robot selection area. Ritzman believes that if the RDC can successfully do this, it can double the number of orders for robots and perform batch sorting. In addition, RDC has also cooperated with SSISchaefer to integrate the robot with the conveyor system. The idea is to let the sorting box automatically roll around on the robot and free Colin from these tasks.

After working with robots for 6 months, Ritzman's biggest surprise was the speed of IT integration. He said: “We are collecting information that has been sent to our voice system and the warehouse control system that manages the transmitter. Getting information from our enterprise resource planning system to their servers, from the server to the robot, is faster than I thought Quick.” In addition, robots also learn accurate calculations, just like most automation equipment.

Both Rizman and Brunnmann believe that robots are ready for companies that are brave enough to try. Brennan said: "When we opened a new distribution center in Fairfield, New Jersey, we already knew very well what automation could bring us. Although this is an attempt, I believe it will certainly pay off."

Ritzman believes that robots will recreate future distribution centers. He said: "Now we are trying to expand the coverage of the distribution center to 10 states. If we use mobile robots for sorting, we can increase our business without additional help."

Portable Power Station

Portable Power Station also known as Portable Power Bank. Our product regulated DC Power, AC Pass-Through Charging, Wireless Fast Charger, Bluetooth Playback, Attentive Start, Car charger, Type-C ....... Large capacity meet the needs of all kinds of equipment.

Portable Power Station,Indoor Portable Power Station,Solar Portable Power Station,Portable Power Station With Bms

Jiangsu Zhitai New Energy Technology Co.,Ltd , https://www.zhitainewenergy.com