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Around 25% of warehouses in the whole world have adopted some kind of automation by 2024. However, only 10% use advanced operations automation.
Read through the blog to unravel several key challenges in semiconductor warehousing and how Addverb’s revolutionary technologies help to transform them in the most effective and efficient way.
Key Challenges in Semiconductor Warehousing
Inaccurate Inventory Visibility: Such poor tracking in real-time and can lead to discrepancies in stocks and per-order fulfilment errors.
Temperature-Sensitive Storage: Semiconductors are damage-sensitive and need delicate temperature maintenance.
Short Product Shelf Life & FIFO Management: Management of expiration dates and FIFO, the First In – First Out, from stock obsolescence.
Small Order Size & Speedy Delivery: Very high demand for timely, small shipments is non-efficacious to warehouse efficiency.
Traditional Software Systems: Conventional systems restrict real-time tracking and operation optimization.
Complicated SKU Management: Requires good tracking and organisation because managing product variation is complicated.
Hazardous Safety Conditions & Strict Protocols: The safe use of delicate components must adhere closely to very strict standards within the industry.
Key Requirements for Semiconductor Warehousing
Storage for Environmentally Sensitive Materials: Moisture, static electricity, or shock can damage semiconductor materials; hence specific racks, bins, holding devices, shelves, etc., are often needed to avoid damage.
Additional safeguards, such as restricted access to the facilities and monitoring systems, should be provided to prevent theft or unauthorized handling.
Precise handling and movement of materials. Automated systems for handling materials, such as conveyors, robotic arms and pick-and-place technologies, allow for further perfection in total control for accurate and effective movement of articles in the warehouse, whereby, for such delicate materials, any damaging movements at speed will not occur.
Solutions for Temperature Control: The sensitive materials require automation to allow optimum performance and shelf life because they cannot tolerate humid conditions. Several technologies include warehouse management systems together with mobile robots, which are likely to improve the process through effective storage and picking.
Real-time Inventory Tracking and Management: Real-time inventory tracking in the semiconductor warehousing industry is the core supporting backbone of high-performing warehouses.
Indeed, a barcode/RFID-enabled WMS, an advanced warehouse management system, ensures constant tracking of materials and end products.
Thus, it gives rise to optimised stock levels, rent reductions due to stockouts or overstocking, and on-time orders fulfilled without errors.
Why Semiconductor Warehousing Automation is Required?
Minimising Human Error: Automation helps reduce an employee’s manual activities, which in turn decreases human errors in inventory tracking and order fulfilment transactions and also in the handling of sensitive components to assure greater accuracy.
Improvement in Productivity: Automated systems enable much quicker work processes for picking, packing, and sorting, minimising material move time to provide a smoother workflow while reducing alleys to be expanded.
Enhancing Its Compliance and Safety: Proper material handling and temperature controls prevent human errors that create safety hazards, and full safety codes and regulatory mandates are boosted by automation.
Quick Time Deliveries: Automated systems fulfil orders faster and more efficiently since orders require less lead time and delivery rates improve while demand is met by customer speed-of-turnaround expectations.
Scalability for Increased Demand: Automation sharpens compliance of warehouses to scale up operations easily to accommodate the rising volumes of orders without increasing labour needs to the same extent, thus providing scalability and cost-effective flexibility at the times of peak demand.
Innovative Solutions for Semiconductor Warehousing at Addverb
Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS)
They play an important part in enhancing storage density, retrieval speed, and the efficiency of the entire operation. Each of these systems is then needed in a performance-orientated semiconductor warehousing automation solution:
- Multi-Pro: Optimal buffer storage and dense storage for rapid retrieval in production and dispatch zones.
- Quadron: A versatile shuttle system for automated storage of small components, such as ICs, for high throughput and space savings.
- Cruiser 360: Pallet shuttle system for mass materials, reaching maximum vertical space with safe operation and effective storage of heavy loads.
- Skyron: Stacker crane, a high-precision handling solution for heavy pallets. Combined with high real-time inventory capability, it is also a highly flexible automated load handling system.
- Medius: A multi-level shuttle system designed for fast, dense storage/retrieval of small items, occupying vertical space for up to 7 levels of storage.
Mobile Robots (AMRs)
The mobile robot, Dynamo, enhances semiconductor warehousing automation by transporting the very fragile components through its fully autonomous transportation system. These machines are incorporated with LiDAR for safe navigation through warehouses, using AI algorithms to improve manual labour so that human errors do not occur.
Their small size allows the machines to access tight areas with their operations, which supplement the optimal warehouse layout.
AMRs automate the transportation of sensitive materials and promise accurate handling with a minimised chance of contamination, in addition to improving efficiency across the entire semiconductor production and warehousing ecosystem.
Person-to-Goods Picking
The collaboration of Rapido and Zesty would make a very effective and accurate process of order fulfilment in semiconductor warehousing and production environments.
Rapido’s Pick-to-Light solution enables operators to quickly and accurately identify products and lines for picking using illuminated indicators.
Such fast and error-free picking is really important in the fast-moving environment of semiconductor manufacture and dispatch, where sensitive materials and components are concerned with accuracy.
On the other hand, Zesty eliminates the need for paper or RF devices by having operators work with voice commands for the Pick-by-Voice technology.
Simply put, using the latest advancements in speech recognition, operators hear real-time, hands-free instruction, thereby enabling them to focus on the task at hand without distraction.
Laatste gedachten
Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), Automated Mobile Robots (AMRs), and smart picking technologies like Rapido and Zesty have made this possible. This means that semiconductor warehousing doesn’t have to worry about speed, accuracy, or efficiency when working with sensitive materials.
At Addverb, we excel in our expertise, so semiconductor warehousing companies can implement these perfect and advanced automation systems to enable their operations to give high quality and meet the demands posed by customers.
Visit Addverb today and discover how our futuristic technologies are transforming your warehouse processes and driving them into the future of semiconductor logistics.
