Eliminating the ASRS Island

Without a management component like orchestration software, ASRS can flood the downstream systems, creating bottlenecks. © Kalyakan – stock.adobe.com

As new orchestration software rolls out, you’ll get more from your ASRS and eliminate costly bottlenecks.

Contributed By: MHI’s Solutions Community

Automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) are nothing new in the warehouse, but the technology has steadily evolved and improved over the years. Once dedicated to pallet loads, ASRS now manages the smaller loads that define most warehousing operations today. Today, the mini-load ASRS dominates the scene, and the global ASRS market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.5 percent by 2030 according to industry reports.

As ubiquitous and useful as ASRS technology is, however, its downside is that too often, it operates as an island of automation. The result is often costly bottlenecks. “ASRS stores goods in an efficient manner,” says Raj Senguttuvan, SVP of product at Roboteon, a maker of warehouse robotics management software. “The WMS drives orders to the ASRS, and then there’s not a seamless handoff to the downstream system.”

Kory Savage, CTO at Conveyco Technologies and founder of the New Dawn Warehouse Execution System (WES) software, says that ASRS “gets the work done, but has no visibility into what is happening in the rest of the system. Therefore, it can easily flood the downstream systems because it’s only programmed to understand what’s on its plate and execute that work as fast as possible.”

This leads to bottlenecks, which are compounded by labor shortages downstream, and ironically, the growing solution to labor shortages, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). As ASRS releases product at a steady pace, the AMRs are often lined up waiting for their loads. Too much product overwhelms the robots, while too little means they’re left standing idle. “You’re driving with one foot on the gas pedal, and one on the brake if you don’t have some sort of layer to manage everything,” says Senguttuvan.

For a growing number of warehouses, the layer is beginning to emerge in the form of orchestration software. While this can look like many different forms of software, the Gartner Group has coined a new umbrella term for it, called multiagent orchestration platform (MAOP) software. The term is not yet ubiquitous, but it describes that upper level of software that sits above all your facility’s automation, tying it together.

WHAT DOES ORCHESTRATION LOOK LIKE?

More sophisticated even than your WMS, orchestration software is agnostic to your hardware and ties together multiple PLCs, all while “handshaking” with WMS, ERP or other legacy platforms. Some traditional software providers are beginning to market orchestration software, but for now, it remains somewhat futuristic on a wide scale. “It’s an evolving space, but it will wind up with some pieces of WMS, large pieces of WES, and some pieces of WCS,” explains Senguttuvan. “If you were to draw circles around each of those, the MAOP will take pieces of each and encompass them all.”

Greg Meyne, Vice President, Consulting at enVista, says that today’s version of orchestration software — often advanced WES — is essential to any ASRS environment to coordinate picking and buffering, along with other functions necessary to order fulfillment. “Orchestration software is the ‘coordinator’ of the operations within the facility,” he says. “When different sub-systems with different operational rates require different timing to coordinate within a facility, the WES+ is that coordinator.”

When you want to optimize your ASRS’ capabilities, you need it to coordinate with several subsystems. These include goods-to-person, pick-to-light, put-to-light, RF in rack case picking and others. With a coordinated orchestration software in place, you can combine all the picking sub-systems with packing and shipping throughput. “You use the WES as a throttle to maximize the efficiencies of the entire system,” explains Meyne. “There is no need to pick if you can’t pack. There is no need to pack if you can’t ship. Coordinating the entire facility with a WES ensures that the entire facility is functioning at a high level.”

While the promise of orchestration software is high, so too are the coordination challenges in the current environment. “A big issue is designing the transportation layer,” says Savage. “How do you get things between the islands of automation? I’ve seen software applications that can’t live up to these challenges for their customers.”

Getting disparate systems of hardware and software to integrate and work together as one is not easy, either. “Integration challenges are paramount,” says Senguttuvan. “Custom code requires a time investment to write, and it’s expensive.”

Not to mention, when you have disparate systems of hardware and software, you may struggle to get them working together as one. And “Apart from integration, you will have cybersecurity challenges, too,” says Senguttuvan. “The more systems that aren’t integrated, the more vulnerable you are to a cybersecurity attack.”

This is where orchestration software brings promise to operators. “It’s an exciting topic and the future of operations,” says Senguttuvan. “It is the master to link everything together.”

Meyne says automation orchestration will only grow increasingly more efficient moving forward. “Data is the key, current and past,” he says. “With more data, more predictions can be made. Staffing, associate and robots/cobots can be assigned to the appropriate areas predictively, instead of reactively. AI will be key to this as well to ‘balance’ loading throughout the facility.”

For the purpose of ASRS, that’s an exciting prospect, says Senguttuvan. “As we achieve advancements in AI, large language models, and robotics, these platforms will manage bottlenecks immediately. We will learn the issues and solutions and address them quickly. That makes it very exciting and interesting.” WMHS

Solutions Community members are thought leaders on automation, software, hardware, equipment and services that support a fully integrated supply chain. As an MHI Industry Group, the Solutions Community provides a unique venue where suppliers of material handling equipment and technology can collaboratively work with the user community to improve the marketplace for all. Learn more at: www.mhi.org/solutionscommunity. Companies that contributed to this article are: Roboteon: www.roboteon.com; Conveyco Technologies: www.conveyco.com/technologies and enVista, the premier provider of supply chain technology & strategy services, automation & robotics, Microsoft solutions and IT managed services: https://envistacorp.com/.