[
From repetitive stress injuries and extreme temperatures to forklift collisions, warehouses have always been hazardous environments for human workers. Robots and advanced software can benefit warehouse safety, according to Locus Robotics.
Spikes in retail and e-commerce activity, such as Amazon Prime Day, are a “major cause” of employee injuries, according to a U.S. Senate interim report released this week. Labor union and regulatory scrutiny join other challenges for warehouse operators, including insurance claims, recruitment and retention, damaged goods, and global competition.
“Some say that robots are replacing people, but what we’re actually doing is adding co-workers,” said Kait Peterson, vice president of product marketing at Locus Robotics. “We did a study in France because the European market is very, very conscientious about worker health and safety. We wanted to see how our robots complied with European labor and ergonomics regulations, and they came out with flying colors.”
How automation can boost warehouse safety
“Our customer Boots in the U.K. has seen about a 77% reduction in workplace injuries since launching Locus bots,” said Kary Zate, senior director of marketing communications at Locus Robotics.
Boots also reported that the amount of people calling in sick also declined once they were no longer moving heavy steel carts, he said.
“They actually nicknamed the carts ‘widowmakers,’” Zate recalled. “Folks were turning the corner and bumping into them. And so the workers themselves were absolutely thrilled that robots changed their situation.”
“We also change the ergonomics, because walking is reduced, and there’s no lifting,” he said. “A worker at one of our customer sites said that her biggest thrill is that she’s no longer fatigued at the end of the day and that ‘I can go home and be the mother I’ve always wanted to be.’”
Not only are warehouse associates more aware of their surroundings when they’re not behind carts, but they can also focus more on picking, he said.
Locus provides native-language support for multiple languages so that when an associate wearing a low-frequency Bluetooth tag approaches, the robot’s display automatically changes. “That also helps with their comfort and stress levels,” said Peterson.
Robots extend productivity for older, younger workers
Another benefit of automation is that it can extend the careers of warehouse workers who might otherwise be worn out physically and be unlikely to be replaced by younger generations, noted Zate.
“Only 14% of Gen Z would even consider working in a warehouse; they’re looking for something different in the long term,” he said. “Anecdotally, we’ve heard of workers inviting their family members and friends to come work at automated warehouses. They say, “You’ve got to come to this place because first, the work is easier, comparatively. Second, we’re working with technology.’ There’s a coolness factor.”
Peterson added: “About a year ago, UPS Healthcare added robots to its fleet and had a naming contest. Some people named them after their kids, and some let their kids suggest names for the robots. We’re actually retraining people to live in the next generation of work, because the Gen Z and Gen Alpha people that are coming are already familiar with multiple technologies.”
Systems must learn to mind their surroundings, says Locus
Peterson also cited case studies involving cold storage, time-sensitive packaging, and multi-level mezzanines with forklifts, all of which can stress workers and affect warehouse safety.
“The key is not just scale — we have sites running almost 1,000 robots across four mezzanine levels,” she said. “It’s important to design for safety across applications and environments.”
“Somebody doesn’t put a pallet all the way into the rack, or somebody goes up high without double-checking what’s below. Somebody drops shrink wrap on the floor — all kinds of stuff happens in logistics,” said Peterson. “Our ability to design not only the robot, but also the software to be responsive and proactive to changes in supply chain environments, is a key differentiator from a safety perspective.”
While interoperability among mobile robots is a subject of standards-making efforts, Locus is working to make sure that safety is consistent among its models, said Zate. Communications with forklifts, which are sometimes manual and in different or overlapping zones, is another goal.
“Our robots can now see forklifts and have ‘no-go’ zones so they don’t go under them,” he said. “We’ve launched PIT or powered industrial truck-to-robot visibility. Not only is it robot to human; it’s robot to robot and robot to PIT that’s human-controlled.”
Locus is also working on warehouse safety with other automation providers such as Berkshire Grey around packaging, sortation, and conveyance.
“As the market matures, there’s no tolerance for someone’s science experiment anymore,” said Zate. “Buyers want a solution that’s tested, that’s reliable, and that’s secure and safe.”
Peterson noted that humanoid robots will have to prove that they provide more value than other form factors and that they don’t reduce warehouse safety.
“What does it solve, and is it doing it better than a human?” she asked. “Can we solve these problems in a different way? Mobile manipulation is a small subset.”
Operational visibility can also improve warehouse safety
Even before it deploys autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) at a customer site, Locus Robotics conducts a “concept of operations” or COO process, explained Peterson. “We take a snapshot of their operations, design out what the robots would do, and simulate that out,” she said.
“We also launched LocusHub at MODEX. It’s our data intelligence platform for customers to look at trends over time,” Peterson said. “Companies were desperate for a solution and recognized that they had fewer injuries. As we get bigger, we’ll have even more anonymized data, as we recently surpassed 3 billion picks.”
Wilmington, Mass.-based Locus won a 2024 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award for passing 2 billion picks last year.
“Most of the operators are asking, ‘How do we meet these SLAs [service-level agreements] and keep our productivity up? How do we get the most out of our workforce that’s dwindling?’” said Zate. “They look at warehouse safety as a soft benefit. Connecting that information with their HR [human resources] teams will help them to see the benefits across the board.”
One of the benefits of Locus’ robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) model is that it handles all of the maintenance, upgrades, and repairs, said Peterson. So when a warehouse safety update is pushed out through LocusHub, customers can automatically get them, she said.
“Within our LocusHub platform, we’re making predictive recommendations, but there’s still human interaction, and the human still has to make a decision about the data that the AI is presenting,” Peterson said. “Just because people could see their supply chain from end to end, if the data was crappy, it didn’t do anything for them. That’s why AI will be big for things beyond using ChatGPT to slot inventory orders.”
Editor’s note: Mike Oitzman contributed to this article.
