Richard Kirker: 0:03

There's been interesting conversations of, let's say these really high end robots about unloading trucks and I mean, floor loaded loads in trucks, which are difficult to unload. It would really be an interesting application for something that's difficult to do. Very time consuming, identifying, cases that are just thrown into the back of a container. And rather unpleasant to do for humans as well

Tom Raftery: 0:26

Hi everyone. Welcome to the digital supply chain podcast. My name is Tom Raftery with SAP and with me on the show today, I'm welcoming back Richard, Richard. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us. Would you like to introduce yourself.

Richard Kirker: 0:42

Thanks for having me, Tom. Yes. I'm Richard Kirker. I'm solution manager for warehouse management globally at SAP

Tom Raftery: 0:48

Great. And we're seeing a lot of changes in the warehouse environment, Richard lately. And one of the things that we're seeing a lot of is the the rise of the robots. And I, I don't wanna say that in a kind of threatening manner, it's, it's it's something that we're starting to see is very, is becoming more prevalent now, the rise of robots in the in the warehouse space is this something that you've seen as well?

Richard Kirker: 1:14

Absolutely. There are a lot of events recently with warehouse automation and supply chain and robots, I would say are, the hottest topic right now. And it's quite interesting. We've. We've seen, of course, a lot of supply chain disruptions here. We read about it in the paper every day we experience ourselves. And one of the things of course, in warehousing is resources. And so robots are a way to augment the, the resource shortage and introduce a level of flexibility. I think we're going to see more of them as well.

Tom Raftery: 1:47

Okay. We, we don't see robots agitating to be unionized, for example, or looking for higher pay or coffee breaks or anything like that, right?

Richard Kirker: 1:58

No, we don't. And, and when you talk about the rise of the robots I had to chuckle, because really the kind of robots we're seeing in warehousing are called collaborative robots. So unlike robots that you see in manufacturing environment, or even that we see in warehousing today, where you have automatic palletizers or pallet building, robots, those are often in a cage, separated from the humans. And so collaborative robots actually work alongside, they can follow humans, they can take task when the humans are finished doing what they do and do activities such as moving things from one place to another that take time, but don't necessarily need a human to do the work such as picking things that need hands. But for example, so, this is a big difference is humans working alongside robots and augmenting really. And so you rarely see that the use of robots is really to replace humans. It's really to take tasks that they don't need to be doing. And certainly not trying to replace unions or anything like that.

Tom Raftery: 3:01

And so just to, to, to give it kind of a basic explanation, what happens often is in warehouses is people walk along with a robot beside them and they pull something off the shelf, give it to the robot, and then the robot brings it to somewhere else in the warehouse. Is that kind of the idea?

Richard Kirker: 3:18

That's one of the examples. Yes. So the picking scenario where you're doing a lot of each picking or small case picking that's certainly true in these days where e-commerce is so important. And so that's one of the scenarios where you, you have bins on a robot. That are picked into, but there are other examples where you have robots that move entire shelves and they bring the shelves to the human that does the picking. You see that uh, uh, in videos for example of Amazon warehouses, but there's also the cases of where you have robots that can go under a pallet and pick up very heavy pallets and move them from one place to the other. So all of these kind of show where the robots are doing a task that you know, could be done with the forklift operator, but it's not something really requiring human hands or recognition of an item and, and so forth.

Tom Raftery: 4:06

Okay. And the whole idea then is that they're making the warehouse more efficient, moving things around faster than could be done by, just with people. And also, as you mentioned at the start, is there the resource issue? We're starting to find it harder to get people to staff warehouses. So instead. We can have robots in there helping the people who are already in there is that, is that essentially what's happening?

Richard Kirker: 4:30

Yeah, certainly efficiency is a big part of it. But if you look at our traditional warehouse automation where you have automatic storage and retrieval systems, for example, they are very, very efficient, but what they lack is flexibility. So if you order profile changes and say, you have a a tray system where everything's in these trays. And now if you're ha having to handle different size product, you would have to build a different automation system or make, you know, adjustments to that one that's quite expensive. So robots, in addition to flexibility, they introduce a level of flexibility that they can be deployed in different areas as needed. They're not tied so much to say a guide in the floor, like the automatically guided vehicles where they can, you know, map the area and learn how the, the warehouse looks and adjust accordingly, and then they can move around people and other equipment safely as well. So efficiency is definitely a part, but it's the flexibility that takes it to another dimension.

Tom Raftery: 5:30

Okay. And how are factory workers taking to these new friends that they're having, working with them in the warehouse?

Richard Kirker: 5:41

The new colleagues. yeah. So I've seen some videos where some customers literally have hundreds of robots moving around in, in a, obviously a very big warehouse and working with people. So it's quite interesting and it it's something that I'm. Kind of fascinated by and eager to see how it works. I worked 25 years ago on some initial warehouse management system implementations, where we were going to warehouses that had no software system. Currently, they did everything on paper or by kind of tribal knowledge and so forth. So the way You know, workers that didn't interact with the technology was quite interesting. I worked with people who didn't know where their mouse was on the computer and then having to work with you know, people getting a mobile device and having to scan barcodes for the first time. So that's always been a fascination of mine, of how this evolves. And now that we're in the age where everyone is walking around with a very powerful computer in their pocket and interacting with it, you know, almost every minute I think that it, it will be probably in some ways easier to, to work alongside these robots, but it will be a different dimension.

Tom Raftery: 6:52

Fascinating, yeah, change management is always a, almost more an art than a science, I think. And, and, I've always said it's, it's easier to change technology than it is to change people. So it is gonna be a fascinating interaction.

Richard Kirker: 7:05

Yes. And in fact, some of the robots, like the picking scenario you described some of them have a tablet type piece on it. where the, human would, you know, interact gives commands and so forth or, or receive information. And so how that user experience is going to look, I think is quite interesting. I mean, the more it's going to look like the smart devices that we're using currently, I think it will speed up that interaction. And that training aspect is also quite big in warehousing where you have resource constraints. Is that becoming productive quickly is quite important because you also have people not working in warehouses as a career so much, but it's a very transient workforce. And some customers I talk to, it's just amazing. There's statistics on how long people last in their warehouse with a lot of people not coming back even after a few days, So that's an aspect too, where you're combining our consumer type user experience with the robots that also could speed the adoption.

Tom Raftery: 8:04

And I mean, you, you mentioned being at a conference or a fair earlier this year and seeing lots of providers, does that mean that the integration of robots from different vendors is starting to become an issue?

Richard Kirker: 8:19

That's definitely an issue that companies are dealing with. We've, talked with a number of robot vendors and they have quite different architecture sometime uh, of what's running on the robot. What's running in the cloud, what's running in the so-called edge, which'd be, you know, local and there are several different architectures. So what we're trying to do is design with our Roy House robotics solution, a way to connect these different robots at different manufacturers, but also different types of robots easily to our warehouse management solution. And that's quite interesting, this mod fair that was held in Atlanta in, in March. I believe there were like 36,000 attendees over four days and that was even. Higher number than the last fair prior to the pandemic and robots were definitely the hot topic of the event with many manufacturers from very large displays and also quite a variety of robots, even from a single manufacturer of the different types of robots. Like I mentioned, the picking the load, caring robots. So it will be interesting to see how the, the market itself plays out. Of the robot manufacturers.

Tom Raftery: 9:28

Yeah. Typically when something starts like this, you. A huge number of vendors spring up. And then the market consolidates over time, we saw that with the automotive industry, the early days of the automotive industry, there were literally thousands of automotive manufacturers thousands of OEMs globally. And now there's five or six. I, I assume something like that will probably happen with the, the robot space as.

Richard Kirker: 9:54

Yes, I probably will. And they're also spreading out instead of just offering robots and connectivity. They have a software component, like there's some, it's very sophisticated fleet management offerings. They do. So they're really trying to You know, it it's just leasing or buying a robot. In fact, everything, most of them now are also bundling the services. So you're not buying the robots. it's everything as a, as a monthly subscription, including the, the service and maintenance and, and complimentary software solutions. And that's, that has changed very quickly, you know, several years ago, I think companies were still talking about buying robots.

Tom Raftery: 10:29

Interesting. So the, the market is shifting. And can we speak to any interesting use cases, or any outcomes that we've seen amongst our own customers?

Richard Kirker: 10:41

Absolutely. We have a customer that piloted our warehouse robotics and they have the issue of the resource constrain t where they are, but they're also growing very, very rapidly and they have moved their business to be also as a service, you know, so instead of just providing it equipment to customers, they now provide it as a service and have extended, you know, the value they're bringing. So they've inter introduced a cross stocking scenario that moves, moves shelves. They're moving onto the picking scenario. And then then want to also do a put away scenario and also the kind of technology, or let's say the sophistication of robots. There's been interesting conversations of, let's say these really high end robots about unloading trucks and I mean, floor loaded Loads in trucks, which are difficult to unload. It's unpleasant, they're very hot and, and so forth. And that's, I think a great example where even more sophisticated robots that may not need to be inside a cage could go from one dock to the other. It would really be an interesting application for something that's difficult to do. Very time consuming, identifying, you know, cases that you know are just thrown into the back of a, of a container. And rather unpleasant to do for humans as well.

Tom Raftery: 11:53

Sure. Sure. Fascinating. So you, you spoke earlier about 25 years ago going into companies that didn't have any software were managing their warehouses, just using pens and paper, essentially. And the transition from there to now having computer systems and potentially robots. Where are we going next? I mean, the talk in manufacturing about the kind of the ultimate aim being lights out manufacturing, is that where we're headed with warehouses as well?

Richard Kirker: 12:26

Well, we certainly have a lot of lights out warehouses currently. And again, those, systems work very well at quiet efficiency. But again, they work well when everything is kind of in a steady state. You know, if you change, they're expensive to change. So I think there'll always be a role within warehousing for parts of warehouses that are lights out. But what we've seen, of course you know, when you have supply chain disruption and suddenly a very let's say a, commodity, a product that has a very predictable pattern like toilet paper suddenly becomes very sought after, and you have to allocate it out to your customers, which no one suspected would ever happen. A completely lights out warehouse couldn't respond, to such a change like that. So when you look at the warehouse layouts of even our very automated customers, they have automated areas, but they still have pallet areas. They still have shelf areas. And I think where robots can extend a level of automation is to these other areas as well, which are necessary to provide the flexibility. And if you think about warehousing itself, it is a buffer that gets the product closer to the consumer. So you can get it same day or next day and things aren't manufactured just every time you order something. And that kind of buffer aspect is needed inside the warehouse as well.

Tom Raftery: 13:46

Okay, very good. We are coming towards the end of the podcast now Richard, is there anything that I haven't asked that you wish I had, or any aspect of this we haven't covered off that you think it's important for people to think about?

Richard Kirker: 13:59

Well, I think, you know, one of your questions made me think about, back to going from a paper warehouse to using the computer system. And one thing was showing the value that was created to the people working in the warehouse. And, and one thing in this warehouse, they always thought, oh, they were doing it better than the system could. And this particular one I remember they were relying on an overflow warehouse. When we used the system, they really had a lot more space in the warehouse than they thought, because they weren't using the space efficiently and six months afterwards, you know, I did a study and we were showed that with actually increased volume. They lowered dependency on the outside overflow warehouse by 90%. And that was a way to really show the value that using a, a warehouse management system was providing. And I think the similar things will be needed with the robots is that people working there can see the value that's being created and that their work is actually being made more efficient and, and providing more satisfaction.

Tom Raftery: 15:00

Okay. Superb. Richard, that's been really interesting. If people want to know more about yourself or about robots and warehouses or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Richard Kirker: 15:12

They can always look me up on LinkedIn and they can always check our extended warehouse management product page at sap.com/EWM.

Tom Raftery: 15:22

Fantastic. Richard, that's been great. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Richard Kirker: 15:25

Thank you, Tom.

Tom Raftery: 15:27

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about digital supply chains, head on over to sap.com/digital supply chain, or, or simply drop me an email to Tom dot Raftery @sap.com. If you like the show, please, don't forget to subscribe to it in your podcast application at choice to get new episodes, as soon as they are published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks, catch you all next time.