Benefits of AGVs
Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) can help food and beverage processing operations to address many of today's pressing business challenges, from the difficulty of hiring and retaining staff to the need to improve productivity and on-site safety. Below are the main reasons such companies are making the move to mobile automation.
- Maximize productivity
In a highly competitive industry battling razor-thin margins and rising energy prices, AGVs enables firms to automate more of their processes and move more towards 24/7 operation, for example by preparing ingredients or stock before staff arrive on-site for a more efficient start to the production shift. - Overcome staffing challenges
Food and beverage producers are struggling with a serious staff shortage, and due to the dull, repetitive nature of material handling tasks, retaining existing staff is also a challenge. AGVs are 'easy' to recruit, never need a sick day and don't take vacations. Once implemented, they allow existing staff to be repurposed to higher value, more engaging tasks. - Reduced damage
The mishandling of often perishable ingredients and finished products by human truck operators is a very real issue. With their pre-programmed behaviors, including handshakes with other machines, AGVs are proven to substantially reduce damage, not only to food and beverage products themselves, but also other on-site infrastructure such as racks, tanks etc. - Flexibility
Unliked conveyors and rail-guided transport systems, AGVs and AMRs enable space on-site to be used flexibly, leaving more space for human workers and other vehicles to move around. In addition, when vehicles are driven by modern technologies such as ANT navigation, their routes can be reprogrammed quickly and easily with just a few software clicks, rather than tearing up and re-applying magnetic tape, or redesigning reflector layouts. - Reduced waiting times
With the correct amount of AGVs installed, one vehicle can always be ready to carry out an internal logistics mission, triggered automatically by via its fleet management software. - Improved on-site safety
With their logical, pre-programmed behavior and built-in safety systems, AGVs and AMRs are significantly less dangerous then their human-driven counterparts, which are responsible for many thousands of incidents every year. Proving this point, some large manufactures are starting to ban the use of manual trucks in production areas. The result of automating internal transport processes? Virtually zero recordable incidents and happier, more relaxed staff. - Improved traceability
As goods are often perishable, it is crucial for food and beverage producers to know exactly where every item is and, in the case of items with more demanding safety ratings, since when. However, human forklift operators are, naturally, prone to occasional errors. By contrast, an AGV's behavior is highly predictable, and its missions known and recorded, allowing for full traceability of stock when integrated alongside tracking technologies such as RFID. - Improved energy efficiency
With their carefully optimized transport routes and automated on-demand operation, non-polluting, all-electric AGVs use only the energy required for their missions. Since most vehicles' navigation systems do not require light to calculate a vehicle's position, AGVs can also be used in 'lights-off' settings, such as before or after human shifts (e.g., to bring ingredients to production or finished goods back to the warehouse). - A better ordered site
For AGVs to be successfully deployed, firstly internal logistics processes must be defined and, as much as possible, standardized. And since AGVs will struggle to travel through a cluttered aisle, they can also end up motivating workers to be more disciplined about keeping things in order.
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