Warehouse Robots Disinfect Faster

Warehouse Robots Disinfect Faster

by | Jul 9, 2020 | COVID-19, Robotics, Warehouse Management

Warehouse Robots can Disinfect large spaces and warehouse faster and more effectively than humans.

With every droplet that we can’t see, touch, or feel dispersed into the air, the threat of spreading Covid-19 persists. It’s become increasingly critical to keep these heavy droplets from lingering — especially on surfaces, which are welcoming and generous hosts.  Thankfully, our chemical cleaning products are effective, but using them to disinfect larger settings can be expensive, dangerous, and time-consuming. Across the globe there are thousands of warehouses, grocery stores, schools, and other spaces where cleaning workers are at risk.

Succesful warehouse and supply chain management leader leverage technology to gain efficiency and increase profits.  Using warehouse robots can help relieve the burden of labor management and increase safety.

With that in mind, a team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), in collaboration with Ava Robotics and the Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB), designed a new robotic system that powerfully disinfects surfaces and neutralizes aerosolized forms of the coronavirus.  The approach uses a custom UV-C light fixture designed at CSAIL that is integrated with Ava Robotics’ mobile robot base. The results were encouraging enough that researchers say that the approach could be useful for autonomous UV disinfection in other environments, such as factories, restaurants, and supermarkets.  UV-C light has proven to be effective at killing viruses and bacteria on surfaces and aerosols, but it’s unsafe for humans to be exposed.

“MIT has been a great partner, and when they came to us, the team was eager to start the integration, which took just four weeks to get up and running,” says Ava Robotics CEO Youssef Saleh. “The opportunity for robots to solve workplace challenges is bigger than ever, and collaborating with MIT to make an impact at the food bank has been a great experience.”
Pierson and Romanishin worked alongside Hunter Hansen (software capabilities), Bryan Teague of MIT Lincoln Laboratory (who assisted with the UV-C lamp assembly), Igor Gilitschenski and Xiao Li (assisting with future autonomy research), MIT professors Daniela Rus and Saman Amarasinghe, and Ava leads Marcio Macedo and Youssef Saleh. This project was supported in part by Ava Robotics, who provided their platform and team support.

Please Welcome Jim Chamberlain as Part of the Leadership Team at Alpine

Please Welcome Jim Chamberlain as Part of the Leadership Team at Alpine

by | Apr 8, 2020 | Blog, HR Solutions

We are proud to welcome Jim Chamberlain to the Alpine team! Jim has over 30 years of engineering experience in distribution and the supply chain. He spent 24 years with DSC Logistics where he led teams that provided innovative solutions for Fortune 500 companies. As a Managing Director, he will focus on layout design, start-up support, innovation, value added services, engineered labor standards, labor management, Continual Improvement (Lean & Six-Sigma), material handling management, and operations excellence.

We are excited to have Jim as part of the leadership team at Alpine Supply Chain! His passion and experience is exactly what Alpine customers have grown to expect, “I am excited to be with a team that is so passionate about working with customers to improve their supply chain operations,” said Jim. “Being with Alpine is like being part of a family – we work together, collaborate, and care about each other personally and professionally. I think this spirit is noticed by our customers and makes a difference in the solutions we create with them.”

About Jim:

  • Has led over 50 successful labor management implementations that reduced each customer’s variable labor expense by an average of 20+%
  • Develops enhancements to WMS on an on-going basis to drive costs out of supply chain for existing and new customers. Examples include Directed Putaway, Directed Replenishment, Accu-Pick, Pick & Load Optimization, Metrics, Voice Pick
  • Implements web-based Material Handling Equipment programs that significantly reduced spend by analyzing and acting on intelligence information related to lift trucks, batteries, chargers
  • Focuses on best practices within logistics centers to ensure consistent, high performance across entire network regardless of business vertical and consignee special requirements
  • Has led team of packaging engineers that focused on low-cost manual and automated product transformation projects that allow customers to differentiate their merchandise within retail stores

Industry Organizations and Associations:

  • Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals
  • Warehouse Education and Research Council
  • Institute of Industrial Engineers
  • MTM Association, Board of Directors
  • JDA, Warehouse Labor Management Special Interest Group Chair
Alpine is now Goods to Person Technology Certified

Alpine is now Goods to Person Technology Certified

by | Mar 12, 2020 | Warehouse Management

Alpine Supply Chain has recently been certified by three different Goods-to-Person Technology Providers: @Opex “Perfect Pick,” @GreyOrange “Ranger” and @Slate River Systems Integrators “RAFT” solutions. Goods-to-Person technology has gotten quite a bit of buzz lately, and rightfully so. With the rise of e-commerce, the volume and mix of orders increases pressure to store, pick and deliver goods in a faster and more efficient manner.

If you are challenged with what items to designate and at what velocity, Alpine can identify the items that will work best in different Goods-to-Person Technology options, and will develop an estimate for assessing the potential ROI for the investment.

How it works:

“The goods-to-person concept is simple: incoming goods are removed from pallets, either manually or automatically. The cartons and/or pieces are then placed into totes (smaller goods) or into trays (larger goods), and stored in high-density automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS), carousels or robotic systems. As orders are required to be fulfilled SKUs are automatically retrieved from storage and brought to the picker, either at a pick station where the operator picks into an order container or to an ergonomic palletizing station where items are placed on a pallet. Since the picker does not have to walk, the focus at the pick stations and pack stations is on ergonomics and high productivity.” – Material, Handling, & Logistics

Warehouse E-Commerce Capabilities

Warehouse E-Commerce Capabilities

by | Dec 11, 2019 | Warehouse Management

Adding ecommerce capabilities to a traditional retailer’s warehouse – If your warehouse is designed for Put-to-Store, Flow through, or Batch Pick & Sort by Store strategies, new capabilities to fulfill online orders include picking eaches, processing orders with very few lines, parcel shipping, and managing tight cutoff times.

In Your Warehouse:

Consider new options to leverage your facility, like put walls, unit sorters, or separate ecommerce waves. Conduct a storage-type analysis to identify the ideal size and quantity of pick locations and evaluate distribution networks to increase next-day service and store pick up.
If you need help, give us a call at Alpine Supply Chain Solutions!

Greg is a seasoned Supply Chain Technology and Operations Professional focused on driving revenue through value engineering (ROI Analysis), and business development. He has spent his entire career as an innovative leader in Supply Chain Sales, Consulting and Implementation and now joins us at Alpine. Greg possesses over 30 years of progressive hands-on experience with a broad range of mission-critical supply chain technologies including on-premise, cloud-based, and SaaS solutions. He has deep domain expertise across a variety of solutions sets including supply chain execution, supply chain planning, labor management solutions, and supply chain advanced analytics. Greg has extensive experience evaluating, selling and implementing advanced technologies related to big data, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence. Greg is considered an expert in roles related to “C – Level” strategic sales, business growth and expansion, value engineering and business case development. He has leadership experience in Pre-Sales Consulting, Account Executive mentoring, product strategy, training/mentoring and management consulting. Greg spent the first 10 years of his Supply Chain career at Fleming Foods, a $40B Grocery Wholesaler, and he was responsible for rolling out WMS and Labor solutions to over 30 Distribution Centers within the Fleming network. Greg then transitioned to Dallas Systems/EXE Technologies where, for almost 10 years, he served in various Supply Chain leadership roles. Prior to joining Alpine, Greg spent 15 years at Manhattan Associates, the leading global provider of Supply Chain Software and Services. While at Manhattan, Greg had a proven track record of providing clear, timely and focused solutions to a variety of Fortune 500 Companies in all key vertical markets.

Free WMS WhitePaper Download!

Free WMS WhitePaper Download!

by | Nov 21, 2019 | Supply Chain Consulting

Do you have difficulty selecting a warehouse management system?

Ready, Set, Delay! The Pitfalls and Gotcha’s of a New WMS Software Selection and Implementation Project.

Selecting and installing a WMS is an expensive and long-term decision that can often make or break a career. Choosing the right system for your current and future needs takes a lot of work, and you need to take into consideration your resource constraints, industry knowledge and overall strategies and put together an end-to-end plan that will accomplish your goals. 
Download our free white paper to walk through the steps:
-Determining what type of warehouse solution you need
-Creating an RFP
-Assessing, comparing and selecting the right vendor
-Negotiating contracts
-Making a solid plan for implementation. 
Do you need help navigating the perils of a 7-15-year WMS decision? Give us a call – we’ve been doing it for many years and we’re happy to help. 
Download the Warehouse Management Systems White Paper today! Also, check out our white paper on business intelligence!
Excerpt from “Ready – Set – Delay!: The Pitfalls and Gotcha’s of a new WMS Vendor Software Selection
and Implementation Project”:
Much has been written and showcased on the topic of selecting and implementing a new Warehouse
Management System (WMS), pronounced in my part of the country as “Dubya-M-S”. You can Google the
topic and you will get ~ 99,700 results, varying in detail from supply chain vendor websites, published
articles and topics totally unrelated to what you were looking for.
If you filter your results into a more manageable set of results, you will find varying opinions on the Top
“X” number of Factors/Successes/Steps/Benefits on how to successfully choose the right software
vendor to satisfy your business goals. Good luck weeding through the reams of documented “what and
what not to do’s.” For many people, selecting and installing a WMS is a once, maybe twice in a career
decision. Unless of course you move companies often. Even then, the average lifespan of an installed
WMS is about 7-15 years, and longer in some vertical markets. Not to spook you, but this is an
expensive, long-term decision that can often make or break a career.
First, let’s decide what is a Warehouse Management System. In the 80’s, 90’s and even the early 2000’s,
it was a pretty simple and straightforward explanation. Today, however, the topic can be and is often
heavily debated…