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Materials Handling

The shape of things to come

By Ruari McCallion

October 2021

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Future factories and materials handling machinery

The development of artificial intelligence and the need for sustainability will strongly influence the design and layout of future factories and, consequently, the design of logistics vehicles. Ruari McCallion investigates…

Will 2020/21 be remembered as the Years of Change, or as the Years of Crisis that accelerated change? A number of issues, crises and pressures have combined to drive changes in the supply chain and in the established modus operandi of manufacturing and logistics. Among the longer-standing trends are Industry 4.0, drives towards sustainability, and legislative pressures to cut pollution and energy consumption.

Manufacturing is moving away from mass production towards mass customisation and ‘batches of one’: standard products that have a high degree of bespoke content and features.

Food and beverage producers increasingly have the technology to grow crops out of season and to increase the yield of crop plants and animals.

Many changes have been under way for some time but Covid-19, in particular, has accelerated the pace.

The way that things are made is undergoing upheaval, too. The Microfactory idea of commercial vehicle manufacturer Arrival may be the most extreme example at present (see boxout). However, increased connectivity, personalisation, automation, real-time performance monitoring by ‘digital twins’, new technologies like additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing) and generative design and, not least, ‘connected factories’ will change the manufacturing and distribution landscape. That will have an effect on logistics, also, from the size, distribution and function of warehouses to the design of materials handling vehicles within them

Juha Nyman, Director, Solutions Strategy and Business Development, Cat® Lift Trucks EAME

“Mass customisation and the requirement for very quick deliveries is changing the logistics chain,” said Juha Nyman, Director, Solutions Strategy and Business Development for Cat® Lift Trucks in EAME. A globe-spanning supply chain is not the future. Pre-assembled parts have to be available closer to the customer, to allow fast final assembly and overnight delivery – which is closer to the ideal of Lean Manufacturing.

“I expect this will be more of an expectation in the future, along with more and more customisation to individual taste. This is probably shaping the logistics chain in Europe even more than local labour rates,” he explained. The Covid19 pandemic has made logistics companies and manufacturers aware that they cannot be so dependent on human labour, who could all be on sick leave, for example. These pressures are all driving the trend towards increased automation, in materials handling as well as other industries.

“I expect this will be more of an expectation in the future, along with more and more customisation to individual taste. This is probably shaping the logistics chain in Europe even more than local labour rates."

Juha Nyman

“We need equipment with interoperability, that can connect and integrate with management systems easily,” said Jani Mahonen, the same organisation’s Director, Digital Services and Solutions Development for EAME. Management and operations need software compatibility. Just as different machines have to be able to speak to each other on the production floor of a smart factory, so do tracking, depalletising, shelf loading and unloading, pick, place and palletising equipment need to be able to communicate, within the organisation’s management systems. The question is, then: how far can systems be automated? How far are we from ‘lights-out’ warehouses?

“It looks quite likely in the case of, for example, the beverage industry, where you have very standardised, uniform loads, very high quantities and the whole logistics chain under your control,” Jani Mahonen continued. Beyond that, the trend is maybe the other way. Batch sizes are becoming so small and operations are outsourced to large logistical operators – but with contract periods that are sufficiently short that they discourage significant investment in fixed, heavy automation.

They also need some flexibility in their materials handling so warehouses should neither be fully automated nor non-automated; they should be mixture. Even the most fully integrated, smart logistical chain, smart factory will need ‘cobotisation’; with human beings, robots and automation working together. But there are going to be ideas that disrupt, and the challenge will be to adapt to whatever happens.

“There are all sorts of novel ideas, including in the areas of logistics and manufacturing – but it’s rather difficult to predict which one of them is winning,” said Juha Nyman. Historically, the winners seem to be obvious in hindsight, after a few years. There is a balance to be struck between fear of the future – potential job losses – and the opportunities.

“The balance is very much on the optimistic side,” said Jani Mahonen.

“Automation works best where you can standardise the process but, almost everywhere, there some exceptions: incoming goods aren’t in good shape, they can’t be handled with a standard process or something,” said Juha Nyman. “No one’s as flexible in handling those as a human being. That makes me believe there will still be jobs for people in logistics in the future.”

Jani Mahonen, Digital Services and Solutions Development, Cat® Lift Trucks EAME

“We need equipment with interoperability, that can connect and integrate with management systems easily,” said Jani Mahonen, the same organisation’s Director, Digital Services and Solutions Development for EAME. Management and operations need software compatibility. Just as different machines have to be able to speak to each other on the production floor of a smart factory, so do tracking, depalletising, shelf loading and unloading, pick, place and palletising equipment need to be able to communicate, within the organisation’s management systems. The question is, then: how far can systems be automated? How far are we from ‘lights-out’ warehouses? “It looks quite likely in the case of, for example, the beverage industry, where you have very standardised, uniform loads, very high quantities and the whole logistics chain under your control,” Jani Mahonen continued. Beyond that, the trend is maybe the other way. Batch sizes are becoming so small and operations are outsourced to large logistical operators – but with contract periods that are sufficiently short that they discourage significant investment in fixed, heavy automation. They also need some flexibility in their materials handling so warehouses should neither be fully automated nor non-automated; they should be mixture. Even the most fully integrated, smart logistical chain, smart factory will need ‘cobotisation’; with human beings, robots and automation working together. But there are going to be ideas that disrupt, and the challenge will be to adapt to whatever happens. “There are all sorts of novel ideas, including in the areas of logistics and manufacturing – but it’s rather difficult to predict which one of them is winning,” said Juha Nyman. Historically, the winners seem to be obvious in hindsight, after a few years. There is a balance to be struck between fear of the future – potential job losses – and the opportunities. “The balance is very much on the optimistic side,” said Jani Mahonen. “Automation works best where you can standardise the process but, almost everywhere, there some exceptions: incoming goods aren’t in good shape, they can't be handled with a standard process or something,” said Juha Nyman. “No one's as flexible in handling those as a human being. That makes me believe there will still be jobs for people in logistics in the future.”

Arrival: the smart factory’s smart factory.

Arrival Ltd designs and builds electric vehicles. Parcel delivery company UPS has ordered a fleet of 10,000 Arrival vans for its US operations.

The conventional way of fulfilling such an order would be to boost production at existing plants. Arrival takes a different approach. It deploys Microfactories close to the markets being served, utilising and developing local skills and employment.

They are highly automated, but the real difference is in layout – and how it will evolve. The machinery is connected and the whole factory uses AI (artificial intelligence), in order to adapt itself to improve performance and productivity.

“The best way to solve complex software challenges is to give computers the ability to learn, without being explicitly programmed,” says Doug Morton, Head of Technology Strategy at Arrival. “If you define the rules and the desired outcome, you train the machine to make use of data to optimise everything in between.”

It will inevitably mean that factory floors and production lines evolve to look strange, to human eyes.

The Arrival Microfactory already looks different because production is in square units, rather than along assembly lines.

“What we do with the Microfactory is relinquish the desire to know explicitly in advance how each operation will be performed,” Doug Morton explains. “While humans adapt to overcome limitations in existing production processes, we see a very compelling opportunity to overcome the inefficiencies of the factory environment.”