Smart Robots Empower Warehouse Teams During Labor Shortage

AI-Powered GreyOrange robots help reduce human workforce walk rates, tedious tasks and turnover rate

Robots continue helping humans with everything from leisure to work activities – from playing music and delivering food to picking and packing inventory in distribution centers. As growing labor shortages, volatile lead times, global supply chain challenges and rising costs create ripple effects in global commerce, robotic automation has become the go-to solution for omnichannel fulfillment. With a 49% turnover rate in 2021, labor shortages are at a record high and are projected to grow long-term.

Robotic automation mitigates labor shortage challenges while improving the work environment for fulfillment associates as robots take on repetitive tasks and allow smart management teams to implement upskilling programs that support employee satisfaction and retention. GreyOrange’s fulfillment platform equips retailers to fulfill high volume ecommerce orders seven times faster and with 50% less physical effort.

Among the latest technology created to help mitigate the labor shortage spurred from a new partnership and solution that solves for inefficiencies and safety challenges in truck loading and unloading by combining Technica International’s iTLS technology with GreyOrange’s fulfillment orchestration platform, GreyMatter™.

Technica’s unique and innovative robotic truck loading and unloading solution iTLS improves dock efficiency and speed by leveraging GreyMatter™, a robot agnostic fulfillment orchestration platform with seamless integration, to orchestrate robots through the activity, enabling workers to focus on higher value tasks. Supply chain and logistics leaders now have another avenue to meet global challenges, including the current labor shortage, as cooperative robotic-human solutions are increasingly recognized by both workers and leaders as essential tools for supporting the workforce.

According to the Essential Warehouse Workers Briefing Book, most warehouse laborers work 12 hour shifts and walk between 15 and 20 miles per day, therefore demonstrating the need to preserve the human body with robots. With the right software and robots, physically demanding warehouse jobs are reimagined, with the intent to slow increasing warehouse attrition rates.

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