We live in an era dominated by technology–some of it physical and some of it digital. This means that we are often walking the line between two worlds, trying to make the best of each.
But what if we were to add another axis to that challenge? That is what the team at Mytra is doing. Their warehouse automation systems combine robotics with a sophisticated digital platform that both leverages and creates data, allowing them to optimize warehouse space–but not for its own sake.
They design each system to ensure that the company hits its business objectives as measured by financial and operational metrics. Material flows, opportunistic accumulation of goods, seasonality…all of these can be addressed with sophisticated warehouse automation.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Matt Naslund, Mytra’s Vice President and Head of Solutions, starting with a dive into his background in industrial engineering and then moving on to what automation allows us to achieve and to envision.
Addressing the Obstacles of Streamlining Warehouse Operations
Most organizations have similar goals when it comes to solving warehouse storage issues. They want to store more within their physical environment, or they want to use their labor and processes more efficiently to get more product out the door–and they want to do it all in a very flexible way.
The challenge then becomes which trade-offs they’re willing to accept: if they want something highly flexible, they have to sacrifice density or throughput. If they want more density, they’re limited in flexibility.
Matt explained how, using 3D autonomous mobile robots (AMR), Mytra is able to find the intersection between flexibility, velocity, throughput, and density. “It’s the first time I’ve seen a solution that you could deploy a single cell or 100, 10,000, or even 50,000 cells at a time. We have the ability to store full pallets, and you can build the system like Lego blocks.”
That got me wondering about the line between physical and technological capabilities.
Balancing Hardware and Software
It’s an interesting time to be in robotics. More often when we talk about robot automation processes, we’re not speaking about physical robots–we’re talking about digital programs that are written to streamline processes. Curious about physical AMR and software, I asked Matt where he thinks the line is drawn.
His answer? “I think the two work hand in hand. Ultimately, the physical robot is the physical thing, the hardware that is doing the task, the thing you see that is operating. The software is the conductor. It is the brain that is informing the robot on what to do and how to optimize.”
He made a good point that, unless they want to risk downtime, warehouses can’t rely strictly on hardware or software. There needs to be a blurred line of balance to avoid single points of failure.
Deciding How Heavily to Automate
While most supply chain organizations understand the importance of automation in streamlining operations and driving efficiency, the question remains how much automation to bring in and how quickly. The answer typically lies in the company’s current level of technology sophistication, their profit margins, and the unique problems they’re looking to solve.
I also posed the all-important question that comes to everyone’s mind when we bring up automation: how does this affect people’s jobs?
To Matt, it again comes down to balance. “We have that emotional pull to group together as humans and fight the automation. The reality is you cannot have one without the other, and they are very much working together.”
He recalled a time when a customer had been struggling to fill 20 roles to no avail, putting immense pressure on the current people trying to get those tasks done as they piled up. By deploying automation, they gave those employees a break and even created a safer working environment. As an added bonus, they deployed AMRs in the warehouse and ended up “creating a role and job function called a ‘Robot Wrangler.’” Talk about fun.
Optimizing Decision-Making
When organizations deploy automation, a certain amount of data becomes available to use within day-to-day operations–but trying to take every bit of data and make sense of it is overwhelming.
As Mytra works to get to a point where all inventory is connected and flowing through one system, Matt says, “it's key for us to be able to synthesize that data and that information and really serve it up in a way that the operations can effectively use both in the day-to-day.”
That data also informs the historically-challenging task of seasonal buying. Buyers end up guessing what customers are going to want and cramming it into a very tight purchase and selling timeframe. Matt believes having cohesive data offers a solution.
“The more you can do to help decision-making and help efficiency and effectiveness during that time to take the pressure off of the operation, the better off the operation is going to be during that timeframe.”
Solving the Disconnect of Sales and Deployment
As we neared the end of our conversation, I reminded Matt how, in previous chats, he brought up the disconnect that sometimes occurs between what is sold and what is actually deployed by the business.
Agreeing, Matt highlighted an all-too-common problem procurement deals with. “You’re sold on a dream, and that dream is the thing that gets you to sign on the dotted line. And then when it gets to actually design and implementation and execution of it, I would often hear, ‘Oh, well, that was sales, right?’”
He’s looking to avoid that situation altogether through a new process within Mytra that allows a single customer interaction point.
“We're in a scenario where those teams throughout the customer's journey are one team, and one team is working together to ensure the solutions that we're providing for our customers are the things that they are actually getting and what we are actually deploying at their warehouse. Because ultimately we want our deployments to be successful. We want our customers to be happy.”
