Going green with automation

By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 5/1/2007

From Al Gore to Wal-Mart, everyone these days is talking about cleaning up the environment.

Given the attention business is beginning to pay the issue, Jim Stollberg, vice president of business development for HK Systems (www.hksystems.com), has a simple suggestion: “Maybe it’s time that materials handling automation played up its contribution to saving energy and reducing emissions.”

You may not think of conveyor and automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) as energy-saving devices. But compared to the size and energy required for conventional solutions, there’s a story to be told.

“One initiative we worked on compared a 300,000 square foot facility with automated high-rise storage to a 1 million square foot conventional warehouse,” says Stollberg. “When you factored in all the lighting, HVAC and vehicles required for the larger facility, the automated facility was just 20% of the cost of running a conventional warehouse.”

Stollberg is the first to concede this is an emerging trend. “When we’re selling automation, the industry tends to look at labor savings and so do end users,” he says. “Right now, I don’t think you’ll justify many $50 million automation projects on sustainability alone.”

At the same time, he believes there is a growing awareness of the impact of energy and emissions. “Customers have told us that some plans are being fast-tracked if there’s a sustainability aspect to the project,” he says.