THESE DAYS, MATERIALS handling managers hesitate to sink big bucks into large, expensive and rigid technology systems. The future of their internal processes and demands is just too uncertain. The technology they find most attractive emphasizes flexibility—the ability to change functions quickly, easily and inexpensively. They also want options for ramping up and cutting back quickly and easily as circumstances change.

Industry analysts see a trend toward flexible technology, specifically in areas gaining interest from customers: warehouse management systems (WMS), voice, service-oriented architecture (SOA), motorized roller conveyors, pick-to-light and robotics.

Steve Banker, director of supply chain management for ARC Advisory Group, says where flexibility is concerned, “smaller is better.” Take warehouse management systems (WMS), for example.

“Some very low-priced WMS solutions have emerged,” Banker says. “Historically, a WMS would be at least $250,000, then another $500,000 to $750,000 to service it. Now there are WMS selling on a software-licensed basis for as little as $25,000 and another $25,000 for implementation, with a payback period of less than six months.”

Banker adds that these systems aren't meant for large, complex warehouses, but they can have excellent paybacks in smaller operations.

Multi-modal, speech-based warehousing (voice) has really been a game-changing technology, says Ian Hobkirk, director of consulting and supply chain optimization for Forte Industries, a supply chain optimization firm. Five years ago, if you wanted to use voice, you had to spend a lot of money on hardware from the voice provider. The hardware was a single-function “black box” workers would strap to their waists. “It was very good at converting data to speech and back again, but it was very expensive and not good for anything else,” he says.

Companies are now outfitting computers for bar code scanning with voice modules. This creates a functional and flexible device incorporating bar coding, voice and keyboard entry. “It is also a lot less expensive than the single-function unit,” he explains. As a result, people are starting to use voice in areas they didn't before. (See “Voice in action” below.)

It is difficult to get people to agree on the definition of SOA. “This is one reason why it may not yet be the buzzword that RFID and some other things are,” Hobkirk says.

SOA provides the ability to accommodate complex and unique business processes with a software system, while still retaining the ability to upgrade and enhance it. “The Achilles' heel of warehouse management software is that almost every warehouse is unique and process-intensive, and it is difficult for the software to accommodate that,” he adds.

Years ago, people would buy a WMS, then spend a lot of money customizing it. The problem was: Businesses would continue to evolve. It then became too time-consuming to re-customize the WMS. As a result, companies would use manual workarounds.

SOA, on the other hand, allows you to create unique business processes or services, and they operate in their own world, independent of what the rest of the system is doing. “I think that in the next five years the end user community will begin to grasp the value of SOA, and it will become a must-have for any WMS application,” Hobkirk says.

Traditional conveyors have large drive units and gearboxes every few hundred feet, and an elaborate system to transmit the power across the conveyor lines.

“If you want to reconfigure your warehouse and use the existing conveyor system, it is very difficult, expensive and time-consuming to do,” says Hobkirk. The reason: hardware and wiring.

With a motorized roller conveyor system, every 10-foot section is a self-powered unit. A motorized roller is linked to the next few rollers and drives them. This eliminates the need for drive units.

“The beauty of the system is that you can re-align and reconfigure your warehouse any way you want,” says Hobkirk. “You can automatically power down any section of conveyor that doesn't have product on it, so the power savings are significant.”

Traditionally, Hobkirk admits, pick-to-light technology has not been a very flexible one. For example, when you need to reconfigure something, such as having 10 items on a shelf and then needing to reduce it to five, it was time-consuming and expensive to rewire the system to reduce it from 10 light modules to five.

A recent advancement has significantly reduced this problem: “buss bar” technology. “Instead of having the light modules hard-wired together, you simply install a strip of buss bar underneath each shelf, and the modules snap in and out,” he says.

Several new advancements in robotics technology will be of great value in materials handling, according to Paul O'Connell, president and CEO of Operations Concepts in Cherry Hill, N.J (856-667-4461, www.operationsconcepts.com), an industrial engineering consulting firm.

“The biggest advancement is open-source software,” he says. “Before, all robot programming was done locally through handhelds. “Now programs are developed in a 'virtual world,' and imported to the controller. The controller then intuitively teaches itself the movements required to accomplish its tasks.”

Multiple robotic functions operate with dual- and triple-arm technology, and using an actuator base system can perform six to eight different functions at the same time. Robots can also move themselves to new work positions without an operator having to touch the devices. You can multi-task a robot across a warehouse floor or pick-and-pack distribution operation throughout a shift.

Robots used in order fulfillment (Kiva Systems, 781-221-4640, www.kivasystems.com) can rely on autonomous mobile robotics to enable pick rates in the same range as carousels and automatic storage and retrieval systems.

The big advantage is flexibility. “Nothing is bolted down,” Hobkirk explains. “If you move to a new building, 100% of the system goes with you, and you don't have to unbolt anything. In addition, as you scale up or down, you can easily add or subtract robots.”

Voice in action