Robots that assist workers, smart vehicles and more devices for transportation

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Robots help warehouse operators in logistics and transport companies

The robotics it has gone from being a passionate topic in science fiction movies to being a fundamental pillar in the development of technologies for the activities of any company; There is talk of automatic arms, sensors, intelligent vehicles and many more elements.

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This change has generated a transformation in the positions of many professionals, in fact, there is talk of robot operators, who have studied exclusive academic careers to design, manage or lead this type of device.

On this occasion, TechMarkup has spoken with Claudia RoaGlobal President of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Equipment Sector of DHL, about the different changes based on robotics for the logistics and transport sector.

(AP)

Warehouses and workspaces in transportation and shipping companies can become very large, meaning workers have to travel long distances from the point where items are packed to where they are staged for shipment.

For this, they have been implemented collaborative robots that help the warehouse personnel to transport the packages already labeled to the point where they are stored, to save operators time.

This ring scans the information on the packages and uploads them to the system

It could be said that until now, this is the most widespread and used wearable in warehouses worldwide, it is a ring that the worker places on one of his fingers to scan the loads.

It’s a digital element that takes the information from the stickers placed on the boxes, then uploads the scanned information to the cloud and automatically records the data in the systemsthus the workers will no longer have to walk with a notebook and a pencil through the corridors of the warehouses.

Although over the years more and more machines are incorporated into factories and warehouses to manage heavy loads, there are still people whose job it is to couple and check boxes with heavy merchandise.

For this reason they have been invented sensors and exoskeletons that help personnel to perform movements involving heavy elements, For example, Claudia Roa explains that in some warehouses in North America, wearables are being used to correct the posture of the operators.

This element is placed on the employees at the waist, so that when they are going to lift a box or heavy item and make an inappropriate movement that could hurt them, the wearable will vibrate to indicate that they are exposing themselves to a health risk.

Although drones are no longer a technological element that can surprise people, their configuration and the functions they are performing in society do. In the case of transport companies, these devices move through the air inside the warehouses taking information from the boxes, especially those that have been stacked or placed high.

Another option is the pallet conveyors, these are vehicles that are responsible for lifting heavy loads in the warehouses and help the operators to reorganize them in another section or spaces. They can be mechanical driven by a lever or electric to lower boxes stacked high.

In the near future these vehicles will be operated entirely with artificial intelligence. and they will no longer need a human to lead or occupy them.

Claudia affirms that in the packaging activities there are processes that can become repetitive and tedious for people, that is why automated robotic arms have been implemented that carry out these tasks for long periods of timewhile the staff take care of other functions that require a “human brain”.

Finally, the inclusion of these new technologies in companies is changing the paradigms of jobs and the functions of people within organizations since, on the one hand, some workers have been trained to perform other activities or directly to operate these new robots and systems.

“In the company they have implemented strategies of re-education so that the employees adapt to the new technologies incorporated into the operations and understand how they will help them and can facilitate their tasks during the workday”, assured the spokeswoman.

Likewise, the use of robotics to improve the productivity and efficiency of the logistics processes of corporations implies the need for new professions, such as data analysts or people who are in charge of managing the machinery and elements that are part of the internet of things.