Pro-Mat 2009

January 26th, 2009

This year’s show was a great chance to catch up with all the terrific people we work with in the industry, customers and suppliers alike.  Too bad it coincided with the longest stretch of sub-zero temperatures Chicago’s experienced in over a decade!

If anything stood out at the show, it would be the expanding presence of automated materials handling solutions.  Cranes of all sizes were on display, automated guided vehicles were whirring around their booth tracks and palletizing arms were building pallets across the show floor.

This last, automated palletization, had a few interesting solutions for non-homogeneous box sizes.  One company, Axxium (www.axxium.com), was demonstrating how its palletizer took the cube dimensions of boxes arriving down a sortation lane and planned out its pallet building sequence by consequence.   While the pallet build rate did not rival what can be achieved by a human being, it was an impressive display nonetheless.

Several operators that we had a chance to talk with about automation told us the key driver in studying the suitability of this sophisticated machinery was not so much about payback periods and reduced operating expenses, but eliminating job functions which are chronically difficult to staff - even as the job market weakens.  It isn’t simply the savings accrued from replacing a labor function, but savings that come from the human resource department costs in constant recruitment and training of new staff to do the work.  With the potential for tighter OSHA regulations on the horizon, the impetus to look seriously at automated solutions will rise.

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