Since the dawn of humanity, man has been creating warehouses. Their development has progressed gradually along with the development of civilization worldwide. This development process is ongoing and will continue. Modern warehouses will constantly be built to meet the needs of a global population that is steadily growing. This has an impact on the state of the natural environment, and our planet is not made of rubber, after all. Based on 35 years of observing changes in warehouse infrastructure, I would like to present to you a vision of what a warehouse might look like in the year 2030.
Based on 35 years of observation, I can unequivocally say that the most radical changes in warehouse infrastructure have occurred as a result of the rapid development of microprocessor and computer technology, which has significantly influenced the development of communication and equipment control technology. However, it cannot be said that radical changes have occurred in the warehouse technologies used, or in the purpose of storage equipment or technological transport equipment.
It is the year 2010, which means that only 20 years remain until 2030. When presenting a vision of the warehouse of 2030, one must take into account what has changed and the technical achievements of past years, as well as the fact that:
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for many existing warehouse facilities, there is generally a lack of space for their further development
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the availability of suitable areas that can be used for warehousing purposes is decreasing
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the costs of acquiring new land for warehouse construction are increasing
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it is necessary to maintain an appropriate state of the natural environment.
It would be difficult to discuss the vision of warehouse development in a single article, due to the great diversity of industries and the physical forms of goods stored in them, as well as the technological processes implemented. Therefore, I will focus on the most common case in practice, which will be a single-story warehouse building where palletized load units, formed on 800 mm x 1200 mm flat wooden pallets, will be stored. Taking the above into account, one cannot ignore the functional zones of the warehouse and the flow of processes carried out there. The adopted warehouse technology has a fundamental impact on the warehouse area, and this is closely related to the amount of property tax paid.
It should therefore be expected that in 2030, due to the dominant role of road transport, new warehouses will be ramp-less facilities equipped with loading bays, which will include remotely controlled sectional industrial doors, powered dock levelers, sealing curtains, and electronic vehicle guidance systems (example in Figure 1).
It can be assumed, however, that the receiving zone will not differ much from what we have today. This is dictated by the fact that goods delivered to the warehouse are subject to inspection for qualitative and quantitative compliance of the delivery. However, the execution of loading work and the movement of load units in the zone will be carried out by LGV (Laser Guided Vehicle) trucks. Load units will be moved to the transfer stations of the storage zone by the aforementioned trucks or a system of automatically controlled conveyors. The storage zones of most new warehouse facilities will have a height of 30 – 45 m. These will be facilities commonly referred to as “silo” warehouses, in which the load-bearing structure for the walls and roof will consist of rack-supported structures, also known as self-supporting racks. In most cases, fixed frame (pallet) racks or gravity flow racks will be used, operated by automatically controlled stacker cranes. Stacker cranes used to service pallet racks will be able to move from one aisle to another. Due to the efficiency of storage zone utilization, a certain portion of warehouses will be equipped with gravity flow racks, as they allow for the storage of a larger number of palletized load units compared to pallet racks. Before reaching the transfer stations of the storage zone, load units will be checked for dimensional accuracy, with simultaneous inspection of pallets for their technical condition – thanks to a system of sensors and cameras cooperating with a computer application specially developed for this purpose. And all this to ensure work safety.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 3/2010.