During the design process of any system, it is desirable to know how the possible range of input values will affect the system output. One back-of-the-envelope method is to assume the amount of resources the system will use, err on the high side, and protect yourself against failure.

However, what if you are designing a race car component? Would it be necessary to always be conservative? If you are, your competitor will be faster, more nimble, and will speed right by your driver. Understanding your risks–or the range of inputs that will play a role in your system design–is the first step in creating a mitigation strategy.

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The topic of robotic, or automatic, mixed pallet building has come up quite a bit recently, so I thought I’d share some of the benefits and challenges that go along with it.

To give you some background, a few years ago companies started building rainbow packs, which are basically a box or bag of products that contain smaller quantities of different flavors or product lines. This allows consumers to sample a variety of items without buying large quantities of each.

So what does all of that have to do with robotic mixed pallet building? Well, the concept of rainbow packs actually stemmed from the advent of mixed pallet building first used by the material handling and logistics industries.

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I’ve been in the industrial robotics industry for nearly a decade and during my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work for both integrators and for a manufacturer of industrial robotic arms. One of the questions that I’ve had many clients ask me over the years is whether they should buy a robotic solution directly from the manufacturer or from an integrator.

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When you think about warehouse or distribution center automation, what equipment comes to mind–conveyor systems, conventional palletizers, or maybe sortation systems? Although each is extremely useful in today’s warehouse and DC automation, the introduction of advanced mobile robotics will change the landscape of tomorrow’s industrial facilities.

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In today’s business world, many employees–including myself from time to time–wear multiple hats on a day-to-day basis. These additional responsibilities, combined with a decreasing amount of time in which to do them, create an atmosphere in which out-of-the-box thinking is often lost.

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