A Practical Checklist for Evaluating AMRs in Your Operation

Why AMRs Are Gaining Momentum in Material Handling

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) are attracting increasing interest and attention for their contributions to operations where labor-intensive, repetitive, and often injury-prone material-handling tasks are essential to daily production.

Today’s AMRs are available from legacy robotics manufacturers, startups, and everything in between. When evaluating AMRs, the process can feel overwhelming.

There are, of course, the essential details that should be top of mind for projects of this nature:

Define your goals: Productivity, Safety, and ROI

• • Increase safety / reduce injuries

• • Overcome limited applications/talent pool/turnover, or reduce headcount

• • Repurpose current employees to more value-added tasks

• • Increase throughput and productivity

• • At what point do we achieve an ROI and measurable payback?

Operational and environmental readiness: Floors, lighting, and climate factors

• • Floor conditions – are they free from debris, liquids/oils/grease, and smooth enough for operation? Are there ramps? If so, what is the slope?

• • Lighting, temperature, humidity

• • How will the AMR work with existing or future systems used in your operations?

Choosing the right hardware and software for AMRs

• • Selecting and deploying the right AMR

• • Selecting and integrating the right “topper”, or “top-hat” for the job(s)

• • Charging station location and battery capabilities/limitations. Quick-swap battery?

• • Fleet management software

• • Software integration with WMS / MES / ERP, or any other systems

The list can go on, and all boxes are worth consideration and need to be checked. It can be a lot for an organization to consider.

AMR Integration Opportunities

While some companies we work with are fortunate to have exceptional engineers on hand to evaluate the AMR market for the right “fit”, others are left managing more than one role, with not enough time in the day to keep routine operations in line, let alone research and vet out emerging technologies such as AMRs.

While the interest and applications for AMRs are not new, per-say, it is continuing a path of constant evolution, leaving companies with many options to evaluate for their use-case’s.  Abel Womack’s material handling expertise and engineering capabilities with AMR systems offer guidance and assure project success, as we work with our customers to understand their operational scope, along with short- and long-term goals, to select the best-of breed AMR system for their projects.

Whichever organization you may be working with, or a hybrid of both, it’s worth taking the time to think beyond the list above and consider post-deployment operations as well.

What happens if an AMR goes offline for any reason?

• • Have you allocated backup units?

• • How will your business continue should the system ever go down?

What is routine maintenance on the AMRs, and who will perform it?

• • Standard parts that should be kept on hand?

• • Batteries?

How will the AMR vendor, integrator, or both support your warehouse automation project?

• • Break/fix support?

• • Scaling the deployment / future AMR projects
    

    

Building a warehouse with AMRs

AMRs can deliver exceptional value by safely automating the movement of totes, bins, pallets, trolleys, and much more. They are robust and customizable, integrating nicely with other machinery such as Vertical Lift Modules (VLMs) for kitting, end-of-line palletizing and pallet wrapping, and a customer favorite, serving appetizers at the company Christmas party. No matter what their mission, they will require standard hardware maintenance and software upgrades and should be supported by a trusted partner.

Whether you’re evaluating how AMRs can fit into your operation or scaling an existing fleet, partnering with an experienced integrator ensures maximum ROI, productivity, and safety from day one. Contact us to get started.