how to bridge the gap in warehouse processes with automated loading solutions

Efficient warehouse processes are essential in logistics. Automated loading solutions help to resolve several different challenges.

One thing many businesses encounter is seasonal demand. Fluctuations in demand are a real problem for businesses because they have to gauge how much stock they need to meet demand. Some months sales fall and the warehouse has too much. In others, sales rise and the warehouse struggles to get orders out quickly enough to the customers.

Automated loading solutions speed up loading considerably. Our solutions, for instance, help you to load up your trailers in as little as four minutes in some cases. The fact only one person is required to conduct the loading also means employees can get on with other tasks task at times of high demand.

As orders flood in, the rush to get them out can cause problems. Workers miss defects with items during picking, packing processes or shipping. Customers then receive wrong, poorly packaged or damaged items that make them remember their experience with the company for all the wrong reasons.

Automated loading solutions can help with this. It’s easy for goods to become damaged during transit when you’re loading a trailer manually or using a forklift truck; but when you’re entrusting the responsibility to an automated loading solution, cargo experiences much less damage if any at all. This is because the technology helps the business to pack more goods into trailers and maximise the space in them. Tighter packing helps keep the loads closer together.

Despite the large upfront investment necessary, automated loading solutions offer warehouses a wealth of benefits that may make you consider them instead of other solutions.

Naturally, automated loading solutions speed things up by doing much of the heavy lifting, and drivers don’t have to spend as much time hanging around the loading dock while loading is taking place. Our solutions reduce driver waiting times by around 85%, allowing drivers to jump back into their trucks and get goods onto the next leg of their journey quicker.

Automated loading solutions lower labour costs because you don’t need as many people to load the trailers. Not only do they cut labour costs though, but by making it more likely goods will reach customers in the condition they’re supposed to, automated solutions also reduce the costs associated with damage to goods. Reverse logistics activity, which deals with damaged goods, faulty goods and the general return of goods, will diminish as well.

Often, cargo will be heavy and/or bulky, making it difficult and unsafe to handle. Automated loading solutions make loading and unloading safer by removing the need for forklift trucks to enter trailers to collect goods or deposit them in the trailer. This prevents accidents involving forklift trucks, such as:

• trailer creep, in which the constant entry and exit of the forklift into and out of the trailer causes the trailer to edge from the loading bay;
• early driveway, in which the driver pulls away from the loading bay while the forklift is entering the trailer, exiting it or still in it;
• and trailer pop-up or trailer up-ending, in which during loading and unloading, the weight of the forklift and the cargo in the trailer makes the end of the trailer or the nose shift.

These aren’t the only types of accidents an automated loading solution can reduce. Cargo shifts during transit, placing workers at risk of it falling on top of them when they unload it from the trailer at its final destination. The automated solution makes this much less of a hazard by stopping them from having to enter the trailer and taking care of the unloading for them.

Boosting productivity, making loading and unloading processes safer; lowering costs; reducing product damage; cutting driver waiting times; and increasing loading dock capacity: it’s clear automated loading solutions have major benefits for warehouses.

How, however, do you go about automating your loading processes? Here are two simple steps you can take:

• set up an implementation committee that understands warehouse performance and challenges, and can evaluate the existing gaps in processes;
• collect data: successful implementation of automated technology depends on collecting data on existing processes. Before you implement any technology, evaluate, too, your data collection processes and infrastructure. Let your IT team take care of any data migration necessary.

Looking to make your loading and unloading more efficient? We can help you automate your loading and unloading processes with one of our solutions, so let's chat? We’ll suggest the best solution for your business, and we’ll also help you install it when we bring it to your facility.