How Technology is Changing Warehouses and Distribution Centers

Nora Leary is Head of Marketing & Business Development for LaunchwayMedia.

With the influx of new technologies, coupled with the consumer want of efficiency, manufacturing as an industry has changed over the past few years. The on-demand economy and products that support that trend have made the industry adapt at a fast rate. What’s really interesting in this new era is how warehouses and distribution factories have and will evolve in order to adequately meet these new demands.

There have been numerous reports on how the Internet of Things (IoT) is drastically changing facilities management and how, according to Gartner, IoT is set to grow to 26 billion installed units by 2020. The report notes that manufacturing is an industry leading this adoption, and the industry will benefit economically from IoT growth as well. With new technology comes new procedures and ultimately changes industry-wide. Distribution centers and warehouses will feel the impact of these changes as they adapt.

What does the future hold for warehouses? With new technical changes will come location and physical changes to warehouses and distribution centers.

Technology Changes

The debate between onsite and offsite IT is one that many times ends with discussing cloud-based technologies. This type of technology drastically reduces the need for onsite IT, which means the warehouse has more space and less onsite staff. Cloud-based voice technology is in growing demand as more companies find it as a faster and more environmental alternative to paper systems.

While much of the automation can go into the cloud, certain technologies are coming onsite to help with efficiency. Bot technology to collect orders for e-commerce companies claims to boost productivity by 800 percent. These robots don’t need breaks or salaries and are not prone to human error. The warehouse workers are then left for the more “human” tasks of personalizing orders.

With these changes comes the need for warehouses and distribution centers to be better designed.

Physical Changes

For warehouses that fill direct-to-consumer orders, there is a need to change the layout to improve efficiency. For some facilities, opening another warehouse space for only direct-to-consumer orders has been successful. Other distribution centers are taking on remodeling activities to improve workflow. Elastic walls that can be moved and changed help companies keep up with this demand. Workflow improvements have also been attributed to conveyor belts that hold both individual parcels and pallets.

The physical remodeling also has companies rethinking the location of the warehouses themselves.

Location Changes

Most warehouses or distribution center locations heavily rely on electrical grids, but with new batteries introduced by Tesla, this may not longer be the case. These batteries can store electricity from the grid or from a renewable energy source, which means that warehouses have more choices when it comes to location.

Companies must analyze which technologies make the most sense for them and which are best for other industries. In addition to more efficiency, these new changes mean more security measures and training which will heavily impact the hiring and skills need internally. What is for sure is that technology is already altering the traditional warehouse and distribution center model and this industry will be in for more changes in the years to come.

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