Robotics defined: What does it mean for material handling?
Robotics adds smart perception and often vision systems to allow equipment to sense its environment and make decisions in real time. That includes:
- Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for pick-assist and goods-to-person workflows
- Robotic arms for piece picking, palletizing, and depalletizing
- Robotic shuttle or tote-handling systems that present inventory to people or robots
Burwell Material Handling integrates robotics solutions from our trusted partners to work along with your infrastructure, warehouse management systems, and people.
What Material Handling Problems Can Robotics Solve?
If any of these pain points sound familiar, robotics may be part of your solution:
Unable to Keep Up With Order Volume:
Spikes strain your current layout and labor model, creating bottlenecks at pick, pack, or shipping.
Labor Volatility and Overtime:
Hard-to-staff picking and packing roles, constant hiring, and heavy overtime to hit daily volume.
Accuracy and Customer Experience Issues:
Mis-picks and missed SLAs that erode trust with your customers.
Long Walking Distances and Slow Picks:
Order pickers spend most of their shift walking to product instead of picking product.
Safety and Ergonomic Risks:
Crowded aisles, forklift/people congestion, and repetitive lifting that can lead to incidents and injuries.
Space Constraints:
You’re outgrowing your footprint and need smarter ways to store and retrieve products without immediately adding square footage.
Our first step is to evaluate your current operation and identify where robotics can relieve the most pressure with the least disruption. Then, we’ll map out a phased plan for integration and implementation.
Our Engineered Solutions team acts as your systems integrator, coordinating hardware, software, safety, and fleet technology so everything works as one workflow instead of a collection of separate projects.
Our Capabilities
What Types of Material Handling Robotics Do We Offer?
Depending on your operation, we may recommend:
Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs)
Smaller, highly flexible robots that move totes, cases, or carts between pick zones and pack stations, often working alongside people in the same aisles.
Goods-to-Person and Goods-to-Robot Systems
A type of AMR that brings inventory to an operator or robotic arm, increasing storage density and consistency while cutting travel and search time.
Unit Picking Arms
Vision-guided arms for each-picking, kitting, or exception handling — especially helpful in high-mix environments or when ergonomic risk is high.
Robotic Palletizing and Depalletizing
Cells that build and break down pallets with the best stacking patterns for the situation, reducing injury risk and improving trailer cube.
Trusted Partners
Our Robotics Partners
Burwell Material Handling partners with leading robotics providers so you can match the right technology to your operation. Our partners include:
Our role is to be your advocate and integration expert — designing, coordinating, and supporting your overall workflow solutions in your material handling operation.
What Material Handling Problems Can Robotics Solve?
Whether you’re just starting to ask if robotics makes sense for your warehouse or you’re evaluating specific AMR or goods-to-person options, our Engineered Solutions team is ready to help.
Schedule a Robotics Assessment with Our Expert Team