Who is Lightfoot...?
Background
Located near Pittsburgh P.A., Lightfoot was founded in 2004 to address a specific need in the warehousing industry to reduce costs through intelligent automation. Agile robotics and technology had developed to a critical point where capabilities were more than adequate and costs were sufficiently low so to create a unique market opportunity.
After years of research & development and prototyping Lightfoot was incorporated in 2006 and sold its first robotic line in 2008. We have initially targeted Wine & Spirits distributors however the technology is easily applicable to almost all distributors and plans are underway to move into other verticals in the near future.
Solution
Our case picking system, Agilis™, is a solution that will change the face of the warehouse industry. Agilis™ automates the full range of case picking to conveyor processes found in a typical distribution center: picking from staged pallets, from case flow rack to conveyors, from pallet shelving, and from bulk storage. Agilis™ interfaces with a distribution center’s warehouse management system (WMS) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) software system to determine the set of orders to be picked. Agilis™’ track based, compact robotic arms then pick the individual cases of products from pallets located in traditional pallet racking. The system can print and apply a custom generated label (barcode or RFID) to each case, when required, and then place the picked products on existing powered conveyors for routing to the facility’s loading dock.
Because Agilis™ is designed to be modular and to integrate with a distributor’s existing order processing software and conveyor system, customers have the option of converting existing facilities incrementally. In fact, customers can install Agilis™ in their current pallet storage locations and continue to pick products by their current manual processes in other areas while Agilis™ is installed and tested, resulting in minimal, if any, facility down-time.
Agilis™ is more than a mechanized alternative to a manual process. The system is a revolutionary combination of hardware and software that allows distribution centers to manage their case picking process in a more intelligent and effective manner. The system results in more efficient use of a distribution center’s floor space, provides guidance for improved stock positioning, manages just in time replenishment of stock, and load balances picking tasks in real time.
Competition
The only directly competing product in the marketplace today is the manual process that Agilis™ will render obsolete. The typical fully-loaded cost of a worker on a case picking line is $45,000 per year. In the lowest wage regions of the United States, this labor rate dips as low as $38,000 per year while in higher wage areas, predominately in northeastern United States that employ union labor, the rate can far exceed $50,000 per year.
Fundamental case picking operations include:
• Pick from Pallet
Laborers pick cases from pallets located on the floor and arranged along side a conveyor. This process is typically used for the top 65% of a distribution center’s product volume and workers pick an average of 150 to 175 cases per hour. While this picking style covers a high percentage of a facilities case volume, it is used for only about 5% of the SKUs a facility handles. Empty pallets are replaced with full pallets from bulk storage as needed using fork trucks.
• Pick from Flow Rack
Gravity fed rolling tracks hold ten to fifteen cases of a product in a high density arrangement. Laborers pick cases from the lower end of the track and place them on the conveyor at a rate of 125 to 150 cases per hour. This process is used for approximately 30% of a distribution center’s volume of items, representing approximately 30% of its stock-keeping units (SKUs). These tracks will frequently stick and require workers to use a long pole to assist cases in flowing down to where they can be picked. When a slot is empty, a worker must retrieve a pallet of the product using a fork truck, manually move cases one by one from the pallet to the flow rack track storage, and then store the remaining partial pallet in pallet rack storage. While facilities will often hire individuals to do the bulk of flow rack restocking during the day, additional restocking is typically required during the night picking shift.
• Pick from Pallet Rack
For slower moving items, a distribution center will store pallets in pallet rack. As orders need to be filled for these items, workers will drive along the aisles in lift trucks to pick cases from the pallets and bring them back to a central conveyor. Workers are able to pick 40 to 50 cases per hour by using this process. While picking from pallet rack accounts for approximately 65% of a facility’s SKUs, most distribution centers strive to have 5% or less of their total case volume flow through this process due to the slow picking rate.
With the processes outlined above, a distribution facility could potentially accommodate additional volume across the same product mix by employing more people. However, facilities generally prefer to have the same staff work additional hours to accommodate increases in volume. Volume trends are predictable with day-of-week cycles based on customer mix, week-of-month cycles based on promotions and a seasonal increase between Thanksgiving and New Years.
Additional factors that contribute to the total cost of ownership of the manual process include: paid time off due to injury, product breakage or shrinkage, picking accuracy, turnover and retraining costs, and infrastructure wear and tear caused by mishandling.
While this competition sets an aggressive price point for an automated system, it is unlikely that the manual process will become more efficient. In fact, labor and benefit costs are pushing the manual process cost structure higher than ever, with continuing increases predicted in the future. We do not anticipate continued pressure to reduce our margins due to advances in customer manual processes.