Latest / Speaking of Supply Chain / How Innovation in Technology and AI are Changing Material Handling in the Supply Chain

Transcript

How Innovation in Technology and AI are Changing Material Handling in the Supply Chain · Speaking of Supply Chain

• 0:06
  You're listening to Speaking of Supply Chain, a meboch podcast. This is a
• 0:10
  show for logistics professionals looking to learn more about the latest innovations in supply chain.
• 0:16
  Each episode will feature a conversation on topics such as mitigating supply chain disruption
• 0:20
  and reducing risk, current automation trends, sustainability initiatives, and more. Let's
• 0:26
  dive right in. Hello, and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain, where
• 0:31
  we explore trends, current events, and innovations impacting the logistics and supply chain
• 0:36
  industries. I'm your host, Ellen Wood. Today we're excited to be joined
• 0:39
  by doctor Henrik Toomer, the co founder and CEO of Salumation, to talk
• 0:44
  with us about digital technology and AI in logistics and material handling automation. Hello
• 0:49
  Henrik, Welcome, Hi Ellen, Thanks for having me. Of course great
• 0:54
  to have you here. We're talking about innovations and AI in supply chain and
• 0:58
  material handling and what that's doing for the logistics industry and the current landscape.
• 1:03
  Talk to me about Saluation. What I read on your website is that this
• 1:07
  started with soccer robots. Yes, that's true. The Salumation is startup founded
• 1:15
  in twenty seventeen and Bremen in Germany, and I found it together with two
• 1:19
  co founders. Claudioe my main co founder, and we have been working in
• 1:25
  the institute since two thousand nine together in a logistics automation space and we developed
• 1:32
  a lot of crazy things, robots for container unloading, intelligent folk lists,
• 1:37
  we combined everything intelligent software AI with mechanics, and yeah, one day CLOUDI
• 1:45
  at the invention of the we had the requirement to develop a very flexible conveyor
• 1:51
  space and we don't find a solution. And one day Claudio had made this
• 1:56
  scientific investigation on YouTube and found small soccer robots. Yeah, and they were
• 2:02
  twenty centimeters from the width and they can move in all directions, can rotate,
• 2:07
  can change the speed, break And the idea was, Okay, this
• 2:12
  robots can everything what the conveyor should do. So why not take a robot,
• 2:15
  turn it upside down, combine it with other robots and move the floor.
• 2:20
  Yeah, that was that was one of the ideas. Okay, yeah,
• 2:23
  great, how we can share improve it and yeah, we take the
• 2:27
  weekends in the institute with all the rest material and build a small demonstrator and
• 2:31
  it worked, and so we decided, Okay, that's that's big. We
• 2:36
  have to that's that huge, and but it was very early, and so
• 2:39
  so we decided, you we then, let's make our old company all of
• 2:44
  that and applied for some funding possibilities, built the first demonstrator where we can
• 2:50
  move all the objects simultaneously with one of our key benefits. Yeah, and
• 2:54
  basically now we have a software driven convey platform which is basically the upside down
• 3:00
  robot, which can combined two arbitrary conveyor layouts, and the software defines what's
• 3:07
  happening when you look at the normal warehouse at the moment, you have your
• 3:12
  large lines of conveyors, specific task specific conveyors, and we have a one
• 3:16
  self. It's all solutions so that you can make everything with our selves and
• 3:22
  some oler conveyors for moving straightforward. We can also move straight forward, but
• 3:25
  it's a little bit. Yeah, it's overkill for your products exactly, but
• 3:31
  we can do all the rest and that's very very Yeah, you can cover
• 3:37
  the whole conveying space there and all the software and not with the mechanics.
• 3:42
  All mechanics is still the same. You can compare it to a mobile phone.
• 3:46
  That's one platform okay, software the application makes it's a sorting system,
• 3:51
  rotation system, transfer system, diverting system. So it's very easy for logistic
• 3:57
  company can only have one spare part cell that's everything. Yeah, it's just
• 4:01
  the one little piece that could possibly need replaced. So that was that was
• 4:06
  Another thing that I read about your product was that the it's because it's so
• 4:11
  modular, so you can make it to fit a small space or a larger
• 4:14
  space. And because of the design, the hexagonal design, you can make
• 4:19
  very very complex designs of these these little modules. And then if if one
• 4:27
  happens to go down, if it has a technical issue, obviously it's the
• 4:30
  software, but if it has a physical issue that goes wrong, it's I
• 4:33
  think it was what seven screws and five minutes to replace this one little piece
• 4:39
  that that could potentially break, rather than having to have you know, a
• 4:44
  huge uh lift to create you know, fix something new exactly. And we
• 4:48
  made also yeah, the company, we made competitions who can make the fast
• 4:55
  cell replacement once I think for five months ago. Yet the major of Bremen
• 5:01
  here from the city and make okay, you have to change the cell,
• 5:04
  and he takes it. Took three minutes thirty seconds, okay, and he's
• 5:11
  a lawyer, he's not a technology, so he's even better. The lawyer
• 5:17
  can do it in five minutes three minutes, and so at the at the
• 5:21
  rate that lawyers build, that's okay. So no, well we won't worry
• 5:26
  about what he would build you for that for that repair because they build in
• 5:30
  very small increments. But that's even below I believe that. So what types
• 5:34
  of companies are using this technology right now? Yeah, we we have a
• 5:40
  huge space. We have from the dimensions or smallest units is five four cells
• 5:45
  and the biggest we have built in Spain it's four hundred forty cells. It's
• 5:49
  eleven meters times two point five meters. The fe in Germany is imputications at
• 5:55
  DHL and for a sorting solution in Spain a lot of quencing and one application
• 6:01
  via currently yeah, bringing the market is the layer discrambling for pelletizing depelitizing.
• 6:09
  And you have example of the depeltizing application the Yen normal systems. You meet
• 6:15
  sixty s grammeters for a layer discrambling of bringing a pellet layer to single apostles,
• 6:19
  and we do it unless than three scrammeters and faster. That's significant.
• 6:25
  So what does that mean for some of these I know, urban hubs is
• 6:29
  something that we've talked about in previous episodes with with other guests, and you
• 6:32
  know some of these you know, these quick commerce and e commerce hubs that
• 6:36
  they have in city centers to be able to handle the amount of last mild
• 6:43
  delivery. Is that where we're seeing a lot of these implementations or a lot
• 6:46
  of benefit that could be realized for these these organizations. Yeah, that's true.
• 6:54
  Yeah, currently entering the last mild sector because one of the key benefit
• 6:59
  is yeah, high through port, small space and the last mile you don't
• 7:04
  have space because you're in the city near the city in semi industrial spaces and
• 7:11
  using our technology, you can transform any space in a microsultation solution. And
• 7:16
  that's we are one pilot here in Germany and gutting In with our partner company
• 7:21
  green Fox. It's called for sustainable logistics and we are implementing or we have
• 7:27
  implemented. There is sorting solution one hundred s grammeters, four thousand passes per
• 7:30
  hour. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's a lot for that size space.
• 7:34
  Yes, it's really a lot. And now there's the idea there is
• 7:41
  to connecting or to give a microsultation service for logistic service providers for local retailers.
• 7:47
  And also you can implemented a small storage for making direct to the customer
• 7:53
  operations. That's only possible when you have a dynamic sorting solution which can combine
• 7:57
  all these passes from different sources and make them a station on intelligent roots and
• 8:03
  the roots will be delivered. The end is electric bicycles, electric vehicles,
• 8:09
  so that you have putso on it. Yeah, so many other options for
• 8:13
  the deliveries as well. One other thing I read on the website and this
• 8:16
  was interesting because of the design of the particular cells that there's a sixfold redundancy
• 8:22
  if something should go wrong. Yeah, and so explain that. Because that
• 8:28
  that took me a minute. I was I was thinking about it, and
• 8:31
  then it clicked and made complete sense. I was like, wow, that's
• 8:35
  brilliant. Yeah, because one sales breaks down and actually this this hasn't happened
• 8:41
  at the moment. We have the systems since twenty nineteen in the industry.
• 8:46
  Since any failure or any fail fail and should it sell and fail, maybe
• 8:52
  have an error or something like that, the other cells can use as a
• 8:58
  ya the path to use, and so you can you have to the way
• 9:03
  you will change the patterns of the movements because it's all software and VF usually
• 9:07
  a suit camera on top which sees what's happening. I mean the camera.
• 9:11
  Nos, okay, this cell it's not working. It will correct the path
• 9:16
  and change it. So everything goes on and on. So you don't even
• 9:20
  need someone watching what's going on or paying attention to the fact that this one
• 9:24
  isn't reacting. The software recognizes the problem and automatically corrects in order to move
• 9:31
  around that particular broken cell, and so it self corrects the problem. You
• 9:37
  don't even have to have a person paying attention. Yeah, in most cases
• 9:41
  not. That's the AI brilliance here, where it's able to self correct when
• 9:46
  when there's an issue, and then of course, of course it needs to
• 9:48
  be handled after the fact or you know, when when that line is not
• 9:52
  currently in use, or when you're able to shut down for a shift.
• 9:56
  But what other things can they to do in order to reduce the need for
• 10:03
  manual labor in these facilities. The big, big benefit is that we have
• 10:09
  a huge throughput, especially in sorting and to be realistic, especially as in
• 10:15
  Germany and do us us probably the same. It's very hard to find people
• 10:18
  doing this stortation job. And because it's also very very hard shob and very
• 10:26
  as it's not the change is not a lot, it's every time the same.
• 10:30
  It is very repetitive and physically demanding. Yeah, definitely, And so
• 10:33
  that's I would not say that we are replacing. We are of enabling companies
• 10:39
  to make this job or this task economic, economically efficient and able to do
• 10:48
  this task because when they don't offend people, they don't make money. So
• 10:50
  automation, as I started in the institute, there was everybody, especially also
• 10:56
  my parents. I said, okay, you do automation. Okay, you
• 10:58
  want to replace a human labor and if two thousand and nine okay could be
• 11:05
  at the moment, I think what we are doing, or what all the
• 11:07
  other companies are doing, also giving humans the possibility to do the jobs which
• 11:13
  they are designed for. Was created to creativity and something to work or not
• 11:18
  to make us monotonous jobs if nobody wants to do so, it's not I
• 11:24
  think automation is not time is over. It's not a replacement of human work.
• 11:28
  It's in addition and optimization. That's a that's a good point because a
• 11:33
  lot of people get very concerned when we talk about you know, robots taking
• 11:37
  over or or replacing humans in different jobs that they've you know, historically held,
• 11:46
  And that's a great point that we need the humans to do the things
• 11:50
  that robots can't do. We need them to do the thinking, We need
• 11:54
  them to do the decision making, the critical thinking that the decisions that need
• 11:58
  to happen from product entering a warehouse to it leaving, but the heavy work
• 12:05
  of lifting and moving and taking from a to B that we can put on
• 12:11
  a robot's back or its upside down feet and let the robots do the work.
• 12:18
  But that's fantastic that it also has that that self correcting feature as well,
• 12:22
  so that again your humans don't need to be sitting and watching a screen
• 12:26
  the whole time because that's not you know, critical thinking either. That's that's
• 12:31
  very very tiring work to sit and just stare at the screen and watch for
• 12:35
  an exception to happen. So what are some other things about your solution?
• 12:43
  Like there there are other conveying products on the market, so obviously this one's
• 12:48
  different in the in the way that it works. But what are some other
• 12:52
  benefits to traditional conveyance. Yeah, one of the biggest benefits we have talked
• 12:58
  about it the space saving and ice grouput, but the easy maintenance and the
• 13:03
  easy setup. For example, we have installed a Lady Scrambling machine and in
• 13:07
  Spain last month in one day, one and a half days, and usually
• 13:13
  it takes that's all it took for the installation. One from the when you
• 13:18
  see your system is it's looks like a convey but the lass it's a robot.
• 13:24
  It has all the things that had AI vision and mechanics, embedded hardware,
• 13:28
  embedded software, all this together and due to this thing is very complex,
• 13:33
  but we hide the complexity for our customers. For our customers they use
• 13:37
  standard systems interfaces. It's very easy to integrate. Also mechanically it's pre programmed.
• 13:43
  It's also delivering a black box. So one one and a half days
• 13:46
  and everything is ready and normally Lady Scrambling all the sorting machines took weeks.
• 13:54
  Yes, it does take weeks. And also a lot of the material handling
• 13:58
  suppliers out in the marketplace are having their own supply chain issues getting you know,
• 14:03
  getting items shipped to where they need to be. So there's delays getting
• 14:07
  their own components and chips and materials in order to build their their conveyance and
• 14:15
  then deliver it to the clients. So I know that there there have been
• 14:18
  a lot of delays in the past couple of years with supply chain issues for
• 14:22
  suppliers to get even material handling to their customers. The supply chains have supply
• 14:28
  chain issues is what that boils down to. So do you It doesn't sound
• 14:33
  like you guys are facing those same issues. No, we have the beauty
• 14:37
  and also the risks if you only have one component for a system, it's
• 14:41
  just the one thing, the one thing. So we are very we're very
• 14:46
  keen on having all the pots here that we can produce a cell. So
• 14:50
  if we have many suppliers for different for all the parts and also some of
• 14:54
  in stock. So that's one of the biggest advantage. The only have one
• 15:01
  key element and it could be applied for many many applications, for many many
• 15:05
  products and also for many many industries. And the normal companies or traditional companies
• 15:11
  have specific products with specific applications and our specification or customization is the software.
• 15:20
  So basically, it's a software product. At the moment, it's not.
• 15:22
  It looks it looks like a hardware product, but it's it's the main part
• 15:26
  is a software and the software is on different areas. You have to in
• 15:30
  the communication protocol between the cells. You have intelligent control software, and you
• 15:35
  have an application software, and you have this AI part recognizing the parcels,
• 15:41
  make it control and making corrections in the movements or changing the path of the
• 15:48
  parcels. That's all together. It's a robot. Is it looks like a
• 15:50
  convey what's the robot? And so one other thing I know your company is
• 15:56
  is growing. Yeah, you're you've made to hit what fifty employees now?
• 16:02
  Or is it is it larger since that last update that I saw. Yeah,
• 16:04
  it's fifty five, full congratulations. And there was a company goal on
• 16:11
  your website that was listed as leaders with superpowers? So what superpowers aside from
• 16:18
  creating this this revolutionary software and AI upside down robot, what superpowers are you
• 16:26
  hoping to engender within your leadership? Yeah that was one brilliant idea of our
• 16:33
  marketing team. But yeah, we have we've made especially for invested presentations.
• 16:40
  You need this and especially in the founded team, to describe how we are
• 16:44
  working together, the strength of each of one of us and yeah, it's
• 16:49
  the way of Claudio and myself was Claudio is the technical genius. He's very
• 16:55
  keen on all the he can he can feel machines, can when you see
• 16:59
  a machine, how it's working. And yeah, that is a good superpower.
• 17:03
  I've never seen this before. And my superpower and also the way we
• 17:07
  work together is I'm responsible for yeah, realizing the environment, money, customers,
• 17:17
  team for making this great ideas happen. And that's fitting very well.
• 17:22
  And that's been doing since two thousand and nine together, first in the in
• 17:26
  the institute, now the company, and so so we are marketing team said,
• 17:30
  okay, that's interesting, but we need to call it superpowers. Okay,
• 17:36
  it does have a nice ring to it. Yeah, all right.
• 17:41
  And so people who come up with these brilliant ideas to solve problems are not
• 17:49
  usually just a one trick pony. They don't come up with one idea and
• 17:52
  then they think, oh, well, you know, that was a nice
• 17:53
  life. I'm done with that. So what other ideas or what other problems
• 18:00
  are are you looking to solve? Are other people looking to solve what's coming
• 18:04
  next in terms of technology and AI and immaterial handling. They can say from
• 18:11
  our perspectives and our company will a very ideal drifven company, but we have
• 18:17
  to focus. That's also one thing we have learned very very hard, and
• 18:22
  they're focusing on our platform and will yeah, develop all applications in the total
• 18:29
  total conveying space and also make some products for some other industries with as a
• 18:33
  company. I see generally m what's happening in our industry is that the software
• 18:40
  part in every areas is much more critical than ever before. So the high
• 18:48
  part will increase, and I think we will get to more autonomous systems that
• 18:52
  we have at the moment is and then you see a lot of for example
• 18:57
  AGVs or and autonomous folklifts. Yeah, that's that's that's that's the future.
• 19:03
  But nobody, nobody thought of the conveyors. Everybody wants to have an intelligent
• 19:08
  folklift, a robot who's doing something, but they that's what's some of the
• 19:12
  points we had in the in the past. We see okay, new robots,
• 19:17
  okay, intelligent folklifts, but you have kilometers of conveyors and nobody's thinking
• 19:22
  about that that's also that's one of the hearts, the heart heart of the
• 19:27
  logistics center. And so we said, okay, let's take over this task
• 19:30
  and make the house automation intelligent and flexible. So are there any industries that
• 19:37
  would not benefit from this type of installment in their in their facility? I
• 19:42
  can't think of any. As if you're trying to move a parcel, moving
• 19:45
  a parcel is going to require effort, and this would work perfectly for that.
• 19:51
  I'm thinking through other industries, mainly in production where you know, even
• 19:56
  just moving things in a production line, this would be useful. Um.
• 20:02
  And then of course we already talked about the micro hub. So this feels
• 20:04
  like it's a great solution for material moving, regardless of where in the supply
• 20:11
  chain you are. I can't understand why everyone doesn't have these already. It
• 20:15
  takes the time, It takes time. Next yea. So we have the
• 20:22
  plan for twenty twenty three. This is going to be in every facility.
• 20:25
  All right, are you are your fifty five people ready for that? For
• 20:29
  that boost, I look forward to seeing these in more facilities. I do
• 20:37
  some some facility visits and I visit a lot of trade shows. So I
• 20:40
  look forward to seeing your product out on these trade show floors, marketing to
• 20:45
  all of these companies that clearly could benefit from utilizing this technology. Any closing
• 20:52
  remarks, Yeah, that's that's a good sign. It's true. We can
• 20:57
  we have one. So it's all and it's not the atist could be the
• 21:02
  conveying functionities, could also be other industries. Everything where objects have moved from
• 21:07
  A to B. That's there. We can be integrated perfect well. Thank
• 21:11
  you so much. That brings us to the end of our episode. It
• 21:15
  has been a lot of fun talking with you today, Henrik. Thank you
• 21:18
  for telling Thank you for telling us your story. I hope our listeners have
• 21:22
  enjoyed the discussion as much as I have. If anyone, if any of
• 21:26
  our listeners out there has a suggestion for a topic or would like to be
• 21:30
  a guest on our show, we'd love to hear from you. You can
• 21:32
  reach me at podcast at mebak dot com. Please rate and review us on
• 21:37
  whatever podcast platform you prefer. We're on Apple Podcasts, Google or Spotify,
• 21:41
  and be sure to tune in next time. And as always, thanks for
• 21:44
  listening to speaking of supply chain, You've been listening to speaking of supply chain
• 21:53
  on Mebach podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your
• 21:57
  favorite podcast player. If you like which you've heard, please rate the show
• 22:02
  that helps us to keep delivering the latest in supply chain information. Thanks for
• 22:06
  listening. Until next time.