Automated materials handling: The new untouchables

I read a column titled The New Untouchables by Tom Friedman in the New York Times the other day. It made me think about what’s next for the materials handling industry.

The short-term outlook for our industry is tough. At the Material Handling Industry fall meetings in Amelia Island two weeks ago, MHIA predicted a continued slowdown through the first half of 2010. Anyone counting on a Christmas bonus – or a Memorial Day bonus – should probably count again. We’re not out of the woods yet. 

Friedman, author of the best-selling book The World Is Flat, blamed part of the current mess we’re in on the decline of education in our country. Without getting into that argument, he had a unique take on our current situation and the near future. Here’s the crux of what he had to say.

“A Washington lawyer friend recently told me about layoffs at his firm. I asked him who was getting axed. He said it was interesting: lawyers who were used to just showing up and having work handed to them were the first to go because with the bursting of the credit bubble, that flow of work just isn’t there. But those who have the ability to imagine new services, new opportunities and new ways to recruit work were being retained. They are the new untouchables. … Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive.”

“… Just being an average accountant, lawyer, contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be. … In a world in which more and more average work can be done by a computer, robot or talented foreigner faster, cheaper ‘and just as well,’ vanilla doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about … entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity.”

You might be wondering: why does that get Trebilcock thinking about materials handling? Well, you know the old saying: You’re either part of the problem or you’re part of the solution.

Automated materials handling is a mature industry, no doubt. But take a look at some of the solutions leading-edge manufacturers and distributors are putting in place.

Goods-to-the-person picking solutions that use high-density automated storage to deliver parts to an order picker who can now pick 400 to 700 picks per hour.

Smart carts and truck loading AGVs that can replace conveyor and lift truck drivers on the floor, but more importantly, at the docks.

Completely-automated case picking solutions (and, soon, piece picking solutions) that eliminate the need for workers to do the back-breaking work of manual pallet building.

Mobile robots, like those from Kiva and Seegrid, that don’t require guidance systems – or bathroom breaks.

If you think of materials handling as the lift truck drivers and piece pickers waiting on a supervisor, or a WMS system, to give them their next assignment, I believe their future is dim. Or getting dimmer. Yes, we’ll always need some, but we will need fewer.

But if you think about the companies in the materials handling industry that are innovative, creative and entrepreneurial, I think it’s an exciting time (yes, I used the word exciting in the same sentence as materials handling) to be in our business. They could be the new untouchables.