In this episode, we focus on the recent deployment of autonomous forklifts in one of our warehouses. The group discusses the solution, deployment process, and impact on the operation.
Special Guests:
In this episode, we focus on the recent deployment of autonomous forklifts in one of our warehouses. The group discusses the solution, deployment process, and impact on the operation.
Special Guests:
Welcome to all business, no boundaries, a collection of supply chain stories by DHL supply chain, the north American leader in contract logistics. I'm your host will Haywood. This is a place for in-depth discussions on the supply chain challenges keeping you up at night. We're breaking beyond the boundaries that are limiting your supply chain. Let's dive in today's episode is the future of the digital supply chain is good. My guests are Brendan Washington, vice president of logistics and customer supply chain at the Campbell soup company. Jim Gaskell, director of global automation and emerging technologies at crown equipment and Mark Smith, senior vice president of operations at DHL supply chain. Continuing the theme from our last episode, we'll dive into one example of accelerated digitalization in the supply chain. Today, we have an exciting story to tell. We're gonna talk about automation, the warehouse, specifically our first deployment of automated forklifts in north America. Participating today, I have three guests, Brendan Washington, who is vice president of logistics in customer supply chain at the Campbell soup company, Jim Gaskell, director of automation and emerging technologies at crown equipment corporation and Mark Smith. Who's senior vice president of operations at DHL supply chain. Welcome gentlemen. Thanks for joining today. Yeah, thank you. Okay. So like we normally do, I'd like to ask you to go around and talk a little bit about yourself, your role and your company. Brendan, why don't we start with you? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So thanks for having me. I'm Brendan Washington, again, I'm vice president of logistics and customer supply chain for Campbell soup company. Been with Campbell for about 10 years. I, my background in engineering and operational leadership through manufacturing and supply chain functions over the course of my career. So Campbell soup is a 150 year old company and you know, their supply chain has evolved quite a bit over those 150 years. And I'm really happy to be here to talk to you a bit about some of the, the more recent things that we've been able to do in partnership with,
Speaker 1:With you guys. Yeah. And more timely, cuz I think we're right in the heart of soup season with the chill in the air. So welcome Jim, please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I'm Jim Gaskell with chronic quit. My title is director of automation and emerging technologies. I've been at crown for 34 years. And my primary test today is to bring new business innovations and new technologies to the marketplace.
Speaker 1:Great. And mark,
Speaker 4:Hey, thanks for having me will and everybody and, uh, good to have this discussion today with Jim and Brendan and all you, uh, shared my title and name obviously, but I've been with the company for six years, been in the industry for 40 years, so that, uh, probably dates things a little bit, but always impressed. When I hear somebody that's been at a company for over 30 years, Jim. So, uh, I found that to be quite common at crown when I've talked to several people over time. But so I'm responsible for, uh, roughly not quite half of the consumer book of business in north America. I have a counterpart, uh, another SVP that we basically divide with the exception of a couple of customers. Um, we divide and conquer if you will, all of that business activity and managing customers and all of our operational teams and support teams to manage that, uh, monster piece of business. I wanna to share my longevity with Campbell's. I've been with the company for six years, as I mentioned, but almost six years as well with Campbell. So I picked up Campbell's as a key account of mine close to six years ago now and been through a lot of changes that I'm sure we'll talk about some of those, but thanks again for having us today.
Speaker 1:Great, great. So Brendan, I wondered if you could maybe paint the backdrop for us, describe Campbell's supply chain in sort of high level terms. How does it function? You know, what are the nodes? And then if you could sort of tee up the meat of the discussion today and talk about, you know, how you guys think about automation digital within the context of your physical supply chain. All
Speaker 2:Right. So, so yeah, Campbell's has a, a fairly complex network of manufacturing, warehousing nodes with the distribution in between and at its center. We use a variety of tech technology platforms in terms of the software that's used to manage each of the pieces from our E R P to our transportation management platform, um, to our warehousing systems within our sites. And with that, we try to put together the ability to influence how we make movements within and, and route our network. So specifically inside of our warehouses, we rely on an ongoing basis on, uh, full awareness of, of where things are, how things are being moved, how people are being impacted within our warehouses. We recognize the need to continue to evolve, not just in how we're physically manipulating the materials and products within our warehouses, but also with the way that we're keeping the right type of environment in terms of the physical conditions of the warehouses and the stresses that we put on, on individuals who we ultimately rely on to operate our systems and to manipulate the, the materials in those warehouses. So the, the next frontier for us is to further leverage the technology that's available to create better safety outcomes for our teams and to, to create better visibility and more kind of real time ability to react to the changing needs in a very volatile market and very volatile set of conditions that can emerge as things happen to make adjustments within our warehouses. And so this is where we see the opportunity to bring in, uh, more partnerships with folks like crown and, uh, DHL who runs some of our nodes in a three PL alignment to get to better outcomes for ourselves and our teams.
Speaker 1:Good. Thank you for that. Okay. So mark DHL and Campbell's have had a relationship for some time. Now I know this is a new solution. How did it
Speaker 4:Come together? Yeah, so there was, uh, a select amount of criteria that we used. I mean, for us, the first set of criteria was basically we have a, a site in Finley. It's the most complex site we have in the Campbell's network that we manage. It's a very high density, uh, full pallet and environment. We needed an environment like that to really make the reach truck AGV successful, or at least have an opportunity to put it in an environment where we could really stress test it if you will. And we also use a criteria that crown being our, our, uh, key provider on MH E they're in close proximity to Finley maybe a little over an hour away by car. And it just made sense to us to use our key provider team up with them and J B T and develop this equipment in a site that we believe if we could be successful at the Finley site with Campbell's. Uh, and it's now a very mature site, but very full site. As I mentioned, density wise, we just felt it was a good fit. So early on we, uh, once we took on the initiative inside DHL to pursue autonomous equipment, such as these reach trucks, we got very, uh, close and, uh, comfortable with crown and talk to them. And J B T about the partnership and working in tandem to build us a truck that we could pilot in the facility. And I wanna say that happened a year ago when that first went into action. And, um, so we went there. The pilot was what we expected it to be. We did a lot of, uh, evaluation, uh, inside the building, a lot of measuring, et cetera, different things like that to just make sure it was a good fit. It was crown got rolling and started, uh, manufacturing trucks. We identified our need in the particular environment. We landed on nine pieces of equipment or trucks and all nine are in the facility today. And somewhere along that journey, as we were piloting, that's where I engaged Campbell's, uh, Brendan, if you will. And we started talking about, here's an opportunity for both DHL and Campbells. Uh, it's the first of its kind rolling out in our organization. We have a long roadmap here to get us to a level of success where they truly are autonomous, but, you know, Brendan and his organization was very supportive and eager to jump on this, you innovation. And so we partnered up with the customer side and, uh, as well as crown and we got a very good collaboration going, uh, moving forward. So very excited about what we're doing. I couldn't be happier that we're doing it at a Campbell site and in the site that I've always believed was gonna be our biggest and biggest to overcome from a application perspective. But I can tell you today that the lifts are operating, moving material at a pretty good pace. We're running the less and less intervention, uh, than it was in the beginning. I couldn't be happier than the, at the progress we've made over the last year. And I have no doubt in my mind once we have this fully dialed in and the capability is well defined and executed that we will have created a launchpad in Finley for these trucks to go anywhere in our organization with any customer with that same application.
Speaker 1:Great. Jim, speaking me about the trucks themselves. I wonder if you could just start with a simple physical description. I mean, what are we talking about here? What does it look like?
Speaker 3:Sure. Well, you know, we're forklift providers typically is what we've been thought as, and what we're really providing in this case is an entire autonomous system. So it's not about the equipment, it's about what the equipment does. It's the end result. The output of that autonomous system is, is what you know, we're providing. And so some of the things that, um, that enables obviously is a 24 7 system with little supervision.
Speaker 1:Right. But at its core, I mean, this is just like a standard forklift, but there's nobody on it, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. And that forklift is taking orders from the WMS system to go do things, to create an end result. So the WMS system says, I want you to pick this pallet out of the P and D and put it away in storage. Well, the forklift has to be able to the autonomous vehicle.
Speaker 1:Okay. Gotcha. In the broader context of crown equipment corporation, I mean, how are you guys coming at the whole automation concept? Is this one of your first applications? What are your plans over the mid and long range?
Speaker 3:So we got into this business about three years ago and we have additional systems of a different vehicle type. So this is the first of our reach truck model. So the first reach truck application is this system here at Campbell's
Speaker 1:And, and a reach truck for those who don't know, what does that mean?
Speaker 3:Well, it's a vehicle that can put away a pallet at 400 inches and 11 foot aisle, and really replaces the same vehicle that they use manually, but it's does it without an
Speaker 1:Operator, right? So this goes up how many levels in the rack mark?
Speaker 4:Um, I wanna say in Finley right now, we're at seven levels. Um, up in the rack, those were some of the early, early phases of the pilot and development of the truck was to make sure we could get that high. And the cameras on the truck could visibly see at that level, the, the other part of the reach truck that, uh, that Jim didn't mention is that a reach truck, these are, these are two deep racks. So when they go up to that seventh level, they can actually put a pallet in the back part of the rack and then put another pallet in the front part of the rack. So it actually reaches out and drops a pallet into the, that location at that level and all levels if you will, from the floor up. So, um, it has outriggers, uh, on the wheels on the bottom that allow it to go under the rack. So it gets, is able to get close to the rack. So, you know, those are just some other features that by design and why it's named a reach truck, but, uh, uh, it's quite impressive. And I can tell you when I, when I first, uh, started thinking about how many levels in the rack we had to go up, I was, uh, quite frankly, I was quite frightened about that, uh, particular, uh, ambitious nature of the truck. But, uh, I, I'm here to tell you once again, it's a, it's very impressive to see and, uh, it's working and, uh, working brilliant
Speaker 1:Brilliantly. Yeah, well, that's where my mind's going. How much does, how much would an average pallet weigh,
Speaker 4:Uh, Campbell's pallets. We can get upward of, you know, two, 3000 pounds. We get into some of the bigger cans of broth and things like that's very dense, lick liquid, and those pallets couldn't be quite heavy. And that was another factor we had to think about, you know, not only going up in height, but being able to manage that kind of weight at that height with the reach truck. But in all reality, we were doing it with manual reach trucks and human beings. So there was no reason to believe the truck itself, you know, couldn't manage the, the same, but I would say of all of our customers, Campbell's a lot of Campbell's pallets are some of the heaviest that we handle.
Speaker 1:And Brendan, you talked a little bit about safety at the start, you know, how did you feel about, you know, recognizing that the, the truck could physically lift it, but that there was really no human intervention. Did that give you any trepid or, or worries about the solution?
Speaker 2:No, not, not at all. I mean, you know, when you look at the mechanics of the forklift itself, I felt like if we were in a position where the lift would have the capacity to do this work, that we would actually land in a far favorable position from a safety perspective. So when you, you think about forklifts operating in an environment, and mark described the environment pretty accurately to say it's constrained and it's a tight, dense environment taking human beings out of harm's way is an outcome that we see from having the autonomous lift. So I would say that my overall view is that these represent a safer environment. And additionally, when you think about human beings and human error that you typically see, you know, I've, I've seen as many pallets dropped by an individual who just makes a miscalculation about how high to lift as they're moving into the rack. Right? And so with the Heights associated with the high reach, those can be catastrophic events that can put people at risk. You also don't see the damage to racks associated with human error as well when you've got these guided lifts operating in those environments. So overall it's a better prospect for safety. Great. And
Speaker 1:Other kind of re results that you're seeing in the operation, what stands out to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, you know, in our current environment, one of the, the macroeconomic factors that we're up against is just rising labor costs, right? And you see in the news, what's happening with labor. We are in essence, when you remove that as a component, it, it helps to defray some of the risks associated with that. I mean, we, we love our people and we want to take care of our people. And as you know, we are able to find ways forward that involve less reliance on labor. It actually helps us to do that better with the teams that we do have. I think, additionally, when you talk about fixed automation systems, that could be an alternative to having the mobile forklifts. These are actually much less expensive than going with some of the, the fixed systems and, and much more flexible. They can be reconfigured to move things to different parts of the warehouse over time, rather than the, some of the fixed solutions that you see in some of the O older automation attempts. When you look at the prospect for utility costs, possibly being lower, and you know, that the ability to operate in 24 hour conditions and, and sometimes people aren't gonna be able to do some of those things. And for example, in dark rooms, you know, forklifts don't necessarily need light that's needed for human beings to, you know, operate in. So we see that as a potential benefit. And then I think lastly, as I think about some of the outcomes that we're seeing, and when, when we look at inventory accuracy, the automation and the software, like it's not gonna miss. It's not, again, when you talk about human error, we're not gonna see some of those issues where, you know, the, the put away is, is marked incorrectly or something like that. And, and I think we're starting to see some of those benefits. And I think as we scale up, we're, we're looking forward to seeing more of those benefits come forward. So,
Speaker 1:Jim, oh, go
Speaker 3:Ahead. Go ahead. I was just gonna add to what was just said. So there's two unique things that are really taking place. They're not completely unique, but they're interestingly unique is the system gets fed by manual operators on one side, bringing product in, and then it gets its output goes to a P and D rack. That manual operators take pallets out. Well, you don't have to dial back to many years in automation where an automated vehicle couldn't handle a pallet that was placed by a manual operator, because it would go into an air. But this system, because of the camera system, it uses can actually pick up a pallet, a manual operator placed and put it in the rack without detecting any airs and also, you know, make decisions about lacing the pallet based on the circumstances, adjacent pallets and things like that. I think that's, uh, certainly a valid thing that you would see if you went to this site.
Speaker 4:So is it guided exclusively by cameras or how does it, how does it find its way along?
Speaker 3:So it's a natural feature laser navigation system and what it is doing. It's looking at the rack, you know, the rack beams themselves, the uprights to navigate itself down the aisles. It has a, a specific path that it's guiding itself on. There is a passing lane for other vehicles, if they need to go around it and they see the vehicle there and it it's natural features. So it's not the old version of a laser, a reflector kind of navigation.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I, I would just add to Jim, you mentioned the, uh, the P and D stations and how that's managed manually, but the takeaway for the AGV works quite well in that particular scenario. But what we did as part of the design to really get this accelerated to success like we have, as we created a closed loop environment inside the racking where over only these particular vehicles operate in those aisles. So when we did that and we took human intervention out of the aisles that these truck trucks operate, we were able to, you know, obviously for, you know, be more, uh, thorough in our testing and our ability to define how they could truly operate. And Brendan mentioned, uh, in a dark environment. And if we turned the lights off in that particular area, those trucks would operate without any light and they could do so almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they require very little charging during a shift, unlike, uh, other, you know, lead acid batteries that require sometimes up to a full shift to charge these require minimal charging. I, I think it's an hour per shift that gets them back to full charge and they don't lose power when the battery levels get lower, they maintain their ability to, they're just as efficient on 10% battery as they are in full battery, where in a lead acid world, there, that's not the case. You actually lose power capability, the lower, the power levels, uh, reach on the, that particular type of battery. So the close loop system was very effective, is, uh, continuing to be very effective. And once we get this nailed down, and I think we're very close to that, the point in time, where we're sitting down at the table with Brendan and his team and our organization, and talking about how we, you know, further rack that environment probably get more density and maybe operate double or triple the number of trucks we're operating right now in that info. So I'm very optimistic about that and very, uh, excited about that proposition. Great.
Speaker 1:I wanna spend a minute on the business case for these, I've heard a lot of the soft benefits that each of you have outlined, but in terms of sort of hard payback on the investment, how long of a, of a payback period are you shooting for with these
Speaker 4:Right now, we're on a, uh, we're on about a five year, uh, ROI. We're trying to get that to a three year solution, but considering the cost of this equipment and the fact that it's still fairly new to market, at least new to our market and what we're offering. I think the more robust we get with this equipment and get very comfortable using the equipment and understand what our functional support needs are to operate this equipment. I see over time, the cost of the unit going down, and obviously the ROI, probably getting to that three year mark, which is what's ideal for us
Speaker 1:Do Jim at crown. Is that kind of the timeframe that you guys are shooting for when you look at automation solutions? Well, we're really
Speaker 3:Shooting for two years.
Speaker 1:You feel like that's within sight.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's what we think the market is going to be in the future is it's really, I mean, mark said it it's five years. Our stretch goal is to get it to two years.
Speaker 1:Okay. And Brenda, as a manufacturer, how do you guys think about it? Yeah,
Speaker 2:I think in our partnership with DHL, I, I mean, you know, we're looking at some of the benefits outside of the ROI is that, you know, when you look at a, a two year payback is, you know, closer to a 50% IRR, which is a, a project that would get signed any day of the week. Um, but anywhere from two to five years would be something that we would call a good investment.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Um, so kind of a longer term question, you know, how do you see this playing out from each of your vantage points, maybe starting with you, Jim at crown, then Brendan, and then mark as a service per
Speaker 3:Yeah. So for us, you know, it's a pretty easy path to see, we need more vehicle types, we need a better efficiency, higher performance, more, uh, pallets moved. You know, some of the things I think that mark touched on, which was battery charging time, you know, that's included in the systems productivity, cuz these vehicles charge themselves. So some of the ideas come out with, can I charge closer to the work area, the vehicle's in? So it doesn't have to travel somewhere to charge any kind of efficiencies that save time. You know, when we look at a system like this, we think about tact time, you know, the vehicle between the WMS commands, how quickly will it do it. And one of the things I wanted to add too about the feature set to this system is we're also scanning the pallet. So every time a pallet is brought into the P and D system, we scan it to confirm the inventory and confirm that that's the pallet that WMS system wants us to put away at the chosen location. That's not something you see on every autonomous system and that barcode could be anywhere on the pallet. So we have a camera system that can search the whole pallet to find it and, and also avoid the other barcodes that it's not, not supposed to see. Those are things. When I think about the future of getting closer to that ROI, that's a few years versus where we're at today. Sure.
Speaker 4:Brendan, what's your vision at
Speaker 2:Campbell's yeah, listen, I think the path goes through the, getting the, the rates to match what people today can achieve Eve on, on our lifts. I mean, you know, the, the reality is that we're a little bit slower on the AGVs and I know the prospects are for that to continue to improve. That is something that we'll need to resolve as we, you know, begin to scale up. And we do see the future involving some greater integration and the greater visibility as I spoke to earlier to kinda where things are within the, the sites. But I think we've got a, a pretty clear path to continuing to grow as those, uh, capabilities grow
Speaker 4:Great. And mark from DHL supply chains perspective. Yeah, I would say, you know, first thing is we need to expand, uh, this solar in Finley and we need to do it as rapidly as we possibly can. And while that's happening, I think that the efficiency gains will happen. Uh, you know, Jim alluded to some of the things they're working on to make things faster and charging, for example, going to a wireless charger, Jim said, you don't have to have the unit travel back to its charger. We could have chargers strategically located in the floor where they actually just drive over the top of it and it starts charging with minimal travel to charge. So, you know, those are some of the things that we're currently investigating, um, you know, full court press on in that regard. But the vision from DHL perspective is not only expand Finley, but certainly get it into all the Campbell sites that we manage and beyond once, once this takes off and it is, it's not a question of if it's just, when we get to that state of maturation, we're, um, we're very excited and very determined and optimistic that we'll see in the next couple of years, we're gonna see this in many of our sites in addition to the Campbell's network. So I, I have zero doubt. I would tell you I was cautiously optimistic a year ago. Um, but now I have zero doubt. We'll get there.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Excellent. Well, thanks to all three of you for joining today. I really enjoyed the conversation. Look forward to hearing more about the solution as, uh, as you continue to refine it and expand it, but thanks much for joining. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:That concludes season two of all business, no boundaries. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague and rate us on apple podcasts. We will be back in January with all new episodes, but in the meantime you can re-listen to your favorite episodes@dhl.com slash a B N B podcast or on your favorite.