Automation providers vs Robotic Resellers: What KPIs can you monitor?
|Article by Megan Gee
Separate the best from the rest by asking “what KPIs can you monitor?”
When it comes to warehouse automation and smart technology, the cream of the crop isn’t just intelligent and data-driven. It delivers data to your business’s doorstep.
When your business is investigating flexible robotics and upgrading to join industry 4.0, you’re making a long term investment that should be offering you long term improvements. That means you shouldn’t just be looking for the initial ROI that comes from faster operations flexible automation provides. There is so much more on offer.
The advantage of the best kind of flexible warehouse automation isn’t just that it’s better than industry 3.0. It’s that it can keep getting better. Continuously providing all kinds of valuable information that can both be built into automated systems for automatic improvement, as well as fed into readable live feeds to keep your staff properly informed about how well their warehouse is working.
To make sure you are getting the best kind of flexible automation, you need to know what questions to ask. The kinds of questions that will separate out companies playing the role of robotic resellers from those fulfilling the purpose of automation provider. Among the most important of those questions is the following:
What KPIs can you monitor?
Depending on how a potential industry 4.0 partner answers this question, you’ll be able to tell if they are a robotic reseller to be avoided, or an automation provider to be taken seriously.
Robotic resellers
When asked about KPIs, most robotic resellers will be able to help you to an extent. Robotic resellers will vary noticeably in their levels of overall expertise in the field. Those with a lesser understanding of their own technology will direct you to instruction manuals, while those more familiar with the equipment’s inner workings will provide some more useful information.
In both cases, there will be a standard list. Exactly what’s on it will vary slightly, but broadly speaking it will be limited and defined. Because of the specific nature of the software integrations on offer, there will be a specific list of KPIs that the robots can monitor, and the software can process. Just that list, and nothing else.
Automation providers
Automation providers will answer this question with a question. When asked “what KPIs do you monitor?” they can answer with “what KPIs do you think you’ll need/want?”
Automation providers make sure that their clients get exactly what they are looking for, which means that the KPIs they want can be tailored and calibrated accordingly. While there are the standard sets like orders processed per day, journeys taken, lines delivered etc, other more esoteric patterns can be tracked also.
Do you want to know how often the robots visited a specific part of the warehouse? Do you need to know how far the robots travelled in a given day? Do you want to know how many times they stopped as a measure of efficiency? What about the weight of particular orders? Are you more concerned about total throughput than you are the number of individual orders?
All these and far more can be implemented into advanced and specific KPI dashboards by the software and support engineers of automation providers. The KPIs offered by businesses like this get to the heart of what your specific business needs. Not just the one-size-fits-all package that every other business will be getting as standard.
Keep processing information
In industry 4.0, your business is undergoing ongoing evolution. It’s not got any fixed infrastructure, so it’s able to update itself and optimise itself to be the best possible version of itself at all times. Not just automatically, but through your own informed decisions. Decisions informed by the specific and particular measures you need to discover the best way forward.
With Wise Robotics, you get an automation provider that will custom build you the kind of KPI monitoring systems that you need. We do not believe in the one size fits all model. Not only will we provide your business bespoke business intelligence, that gives you the competitive edge you need, we make sure all your teams get the specific information they need. Different dashboards designed with different departments in mind, all supported and co-ordinated in an ongoing fashion. If your requirements should change as your business evolves, we can change with you. Adapting and adjusting alongside your situation. Giving you the best possible support as your warehouse automation takes your business into the future.
To learn about all this in much more detail, come and visit our warehouse robotics demonstration centre. Discover how hardware and software come together to create a symphony of solutions for all your warehouse problems. See how a flexible robotic solution from Wise Robotics can support and sustain the next generation of your business.
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