Logistics and warehousing
Palletizing, order picking and mobile robots with a collaborative arm, in warehouses and distribution centers.
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Link to the SDGs SDG 8 SDG 9
- SDG 8 Decent work and economic growth Cobots can take over repetitive lifting of cases, one of the main causes of injuries in warehouses.
- SDG 9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure Shows how robots, sensors and simulation make warehouses more flexible when demand changes.
Written with AI assistance. Still under review by the team.
In warehouses and distribution centers, work is dominated by moving things: taking cases off pallets, picking order items, building kits and carrying materials from one point to another. Cobots appear both at fixed stations and mounted on autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), forming so-called mobile manipulators.
Why cobots here
- Repetitive lifting: palletizing and depalletizing mean lifting cases all day.
- Variable demand: seasonal peaks call for automation that can be relocated without construction work.
- Shared space: people, carts and robots move through the same aisles.
Where IoT and the digital twin come in
- Tracking: barcode and RFID readers and sensors at the stations show where every order is in real time.
- Warehouse simulation: the digital twin lets you test layouts, mobile-robot routes and the effect of an order peak before changing the real world.
- Robot fleet: battery, route and stop data help coordinate mobile robots and people.
Watch out for
- Payload and item variety: heavy cases or very different items (shapes, fragile packaging) need suitable grippers and vision — and may exceed what a cobot can pick.
- Pace: collaborative speed must be compared with the orders-per-hour target.
- Mobile robots: an arm moving on a base that also moves adds risks; the risk assessment must cover the arm, the base and the aisles they travel.