The turtle-like robots, above and below, will lift and deliver parts to order fillers.
When you think of speed in the auto industry, turtles don't exactly leap to mind.
But in a large section of a very big parts distribution warehouse in northern Kentucky, Toyota is betting that turtles will make things move a bit faster for its North American business.
The "turtles" in this case are 134 strong and smart little robots, made by a business unit of Kuka Robotics, that happen to look like turtles.
At Toyota, their job is to pick up and carry heavy racks of small and midsize auto parts to human team members in the warehouse to help them fill parts orders from distributors and dealers, and then put the racks back.
They are to be installed around the first of next year in Toyota Motor North America's large parts distribution warehouse in Hebron, Ky., in suburban Cincinnati. It is part of a $10 million pilot program that Toyota believes will bring "double-digit increases" in efficiency to its largest North American parts distribution warehouse.
Toyota Executive Portraits-Mike Schober
"We've used automation in our manufacturing plants for a very long time, but we really haven't delved too deeply into automation on our warehousing side before," said Mike Schober, vice president of parts supply chain operations for Toyota Motor North America. "And we haven't done a large play like this before, either."
The turtles, which also are used by Amazon, will work in an 86,000-square-foot section of Toyota's 792,000-square-foot Hebron facility, automatically lifting and then delivering sophisticated racks full of auto parts to the human order fillers. The turtles will help maintain inventories as well, delivering those same racks to be refilled by other humans when stocks get low, before returning them to their fenced-off area.
To fully comprehend how much more efficient it will be, Schober says you have to consider that the work currently is being done by humans with stationary racks.
Hebron "is the largest parts distribution fulfillment warehouse in our network, and it's a fast-moving, high-velocity environment," Schober said.
"In this kind of environment, team members end up walking 4.5 to 7.5 miles through the workday to pick parts."
Toyota experimented with other robotic assistants in its parts distribution center in Chicago. There the automaker is using robotic carts that guide a team member to the right rack and highlight the needed part. That solution reduced errors, Schober said, but employees still had to walk around with the parts robots to fill orders.
The Kentucky project will go live in March 2022, Schober said, and shows great promise.
"We certainly expect a double-digit improvement in efficiency because of the fact that you eliminate the need to do all the walking," he said.
The robotic turtles won't be working with every part number in the warehouse but will focus on small, high-demand items.
"We have everything in here from door panels and transmissions to trim clips, and some of the parts are quite large," Schober explained. "So we're starting with those parts that we know we'll be successful at."
He and his team have little doubt that their new bale of robotic turtles will speed the order fulfillment process — no small task, given that the facility fills 105 outbound tractor-trailers with orders every day.
"In any warehousing situation now, lead time is the ticket to entry," Schober explained.
"And one of the primary benefits we hope to gain is lead time reduction."
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