Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd (MHI) and Mitsubishi Logisnext Co, Ltd, part of MHI Group, have completed development of an automated picking system.
This system integrates automated guided forklifts (AGFs), automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and palletisers.
LogiQ X Labo, a demonstration facility for this new logistics solution, has also opened at Yokohama Hardtech Hub (YHH), a co-creation space operated by MHI in Yokohama. Tours of the demonstration facility will be open to customers from October, to support their consideration of adopting automation and reducing manual labour within their warehouses.
Until now, picking operations in warehouses have depended on workers pursuing efficiency through intense concentration. The newly developed picking system introduces automation and intelligence into the picking process through application of MHI’s ∑SynX (Sigma Synx) solution concept currently under development.
Customised application developed in-house together with an integrated control system enable efficient coordination of multiple AGFs, AGVs and palletisers. This results in fewer picking and transfer operations, optimized picking processing, and higher throughput.
By automating and introducing intelligence into picking operations conventionally performed by numerous workers, the new solution helps to alleviate current shortages of logistics operators, frees workers from the arduous labour of picking heavy items, and contributes to reducing human error.
Because the new solution does not require any large-scale floor construction or modifications, it can be adopted for today’s increasingly prevalent multi-tenant warehouses, and can also respond to sudden changes in customer requirements.
Mitsubishi Logisnext demonstrated how the system feeds stock pallets and delivers palletised pallets using an automated picking system comprising an AGF and AGV at Logis-Tech Tokyo 2022.
In the future, MHI and Mitsubishi Logisnext will continue applying the full complement of MHI Group’s capabilities to the development of advanced products, including automated warehousing and shipment systems enabled by ∑SynX, providing optimal solutions to the diverse challenges facing the distribution industry.