However, that hasn’t dampened their insistence on having it now. Meanwhile in this age of Covid, customers have become more fickle about what they buy and where. Robotic arms handle a wide range of products that come in many sizes and shapes. “How you rebalance your resources-whether labor or robotics-with software to execute perfect flow is the holy grail of lights out,” says Russ Meller, Fortna’s principal scientist. Needless to say, the limited availability of labor is a huge driver. No lights needed here with shuttles handling inventory in automated storage systems. Some suppliers say they have backlogs of a year or two for automated systems. This is part of the even more impressive expansion of automation of all types across so many facilities. One of the most notable shifts is the seeming explosion of robots from autonomous mobile types to those that do piece picking. And these developments are having an impact.
However, some things have changed rather dramatically since then. In that story, he went on to say “companies should make it a goal to automate 80% of their materials handling operations in the near future, and up to 95% eventually.”Įxperts interviewed for this story agree with that assessment. Lights out is now a North Star metaphor for extensive use of automation, not a tangible deliverable in and of itself.”Īnd today, he’s still mostly right. There’s good news here this is a developing story.įour years ago (Modern, March 2018), Jeff Christensen, vice president of product at Seegrid, said “lights out no longer literally means lights out. Quite simply, there are not a lot of lights out systems like the one that manufactures 6,000 robots every month at a Fanuc plant in Japan.īut don’t be discouraged. Take a listen… That’s the sound of pure and continuous inventory movement from station to station, process to process and on out the door.īut have you ever actually seen that inky blackness? Probably not, no matter how compelling the sound of lights out is. No need for lights on the shop or warehouse floor because all processes are fully automated. Whether you’re reading them for the first time or the 50th, you know exactly what they mean. It’s such a great couple of words: Lights Out.
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