EP 603: MHI’s Conveyor and Sortation Solutions Group on Smarter Vertical Integration
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And now, here's Kevin. Hey, it's Kevin with the New Warehouse Podcast here at ProMat 2025. And we are in the booth and we are going to be joined by two guests today. And they are representing the Conveyor Sortation and Solution MHI Industry Group. I'm going to be joined by Wesley Parkin. He's with Kima Rocks and Steve Castle with Auto Equip. And we're going to talk a little bit about the Conveyor Sortation Solution Community Group and

and learn a little bit about what they do. But we're also going to talk about some of the challenges around moving AMRs, which there are a lot of AMRs in this building right now. But the challenge is between moving those AMRs between levels within your facility. So Wesley, Steve, great to have you join me here. Tell us a little bit about how's the week going for you both. Wesley, you want to start? Sure. It's been a great week so far. We had a lot of traffic, great shows. Good.

good customers for us it's good for building up the relations yeah cannot complain alright Steve how about you it's been good it's been 12 years since other equipment had exhibited at ProMap but we come back in and we have a nice real nice booth we brought in some equipment that we believe applies to those types of

AMR applications and several others today and we've launched some new products that we hadn't ever really marketed before so it's been really good nice nice okay alright I'd like to hear that definitely welcome back after 12 years definitely yeah sure so it's great to get you both in here we're uh

We're closing out day three here as we're recording this, right? So obviously we've seen a ton of traffic come in, a lot of things going on, but I think, you know, everybody's probably coming here with some type of challenges, right? And part of the resources that MHI provides, you know, aside from putting on ProMat is they have these industry groups as well, right? And you are both representatives of the CSS group or Conveyors Rotation Solution group. So tell us a little bit about what is that group all about?

Steve, you want to kick it off? Sure. So there are a number of manufacturers and system integrators, a lot of people that work in that systems industry.

integration and kind of product innovation group, I would describe it because there are a lot of different types of companies that contribute to that group. And so some of us are manufacturers, some of us are, like I said, integrators. But whenever we come together, like in an industry format, we can network, we can also kind of refer to one another. There are ways that we can share information. And one of the things that I think is important this week is

CSS group is doing I think is really smart and it's maybe the first group because we're also in the lift group that industry group and they're not currently doing it for the lift group but the CSS group is doing a referral sharing program which I think is really

handy because there are customers that come into our booth and we may not offer the specific type of equipment or the specific solution that they're looking for. So we can basically have a QR code they can scan and then they can submit

their specific application to MHI and so it becomes a share portal basically where everyone in the industry group can see that application and if it's something that they believe they can help assist with then they will raise their hand and then MHI will have that customer reach out directly to the provider so it kind of it's a great referral program within the industry group

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's great. You know, I think one of the things...

that I like the most about the industry groups, as I've talked to multiple of them now and I've learned from them, is that even though in some cases there may be competitors within the industry group, you're all very open to collaborating and figuring it out. And that's just another testament to what you're talking about there, Steve, to be able to share those referrals and see, like, oh, well, we've got so many here and this could be a good fit for you, so let's send it over to you and let's share the love a little bit, right? Absolutely. None of us...

have identical product lines. So if we can cross pollinate a little bit and try to just help be a resource to the customer, it adds value. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. And what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I would agree. I would say it's great for networking. We're a component manufacturer. So for us, it's really good to see what's going on there, all the different types of solutions, different customers. So for us, it's an awesome networking event.

Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, it's really interesting to hear that. I love that you guys are providing that resource, you know, not only for each other, right, as a community, as a group, but you're also...

putting out those kind of resources and things to be able to educate who would be the attendee at ProMap, right? For example, or the industry as a whole. So tell us a little bit about some of the challenges that you're hearing this week as you interact with attendees and some of the things that they're facing and trying to solve for. I would say that for us, it's basically people know us from vertical conveyors. So we manufacture...

PRCs from boxes, but also for pallets and everything. We see more and more need of AGVs going up and down between levels, sorting. So it's basically trying to make the system as efficient as possible. So in that sense, we try to advise them, show them our equipment, show them the benefits of it.

and help them to automate their systems. All right, great. And Steve, what about on your side? What are you hearing? Very similar. There are a lot of customers that are looking at automation perhaps for the first time, and so they're trying to understand what the process looks like and what kind of research they need to do before they start investing. Is it worthwhile? And what applications actually make sense and which ones don't?

So we try to be a resource for them to not just learn about our equipment, but learn about the process. It's kind of uncertain. There's a lot of uncertainty out there right now with material availability and with just market in general. And so people are really looking at

where they can optimize, where they can economize. So they may invest, but they really understand where the ROI is and understand where the pitfalls are. And sometimes it's really easy to quantify their investment. Sometimes they can do it in stages. And so really we just try to figure out a way to help

lead them through the process step by step so that they get all their stakeholders in, they understand exactly what the challenges will be for automating and basically in order to execute it correctly they have to understand the problem they're trying to solve and get all of their stakeholders to come in and say okay these are my concerns, these are the things I'd like to include with this project and so we try to

address those up front, help them to do simulation, help them to do types of sandbox atmosphere testing, and kind of prove a concept before we say, okay, let's jump in this all the way. And we as a control system provider also, we try to get into a lot of the details of operator interoperability

and it really can get the automation part of it is something that we really try to hold their hand closely. The more we understand, the better of a resource we can be. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a great way to approach it, right? To be able to hold their hand essentially and get them all the way through the processes there.

And Wesley, you mentioned that you're seeing some challenges where, and also demand, right? And need for these AGVs, AMRs to go to multiple levels, right? So tell us a little bit about what is kind of driving that need. Well, I would say efficiency of the system, but floor space, the flexibility of the system as well, especially that. It just gives the system a whole lot of flexibility to move up and down, left and right. Yeah, so that's...

where our figure seems to basically come into play. Interesting, interesting. And what do you think is kind of the way to approach that? Because I think we're obviously seeing, like we said, there's certainly a ton of AGVs, AMRs here. So obviously those solutions are out there and people are trying to potentially utilize their cubic space more, trying to have mezzanines and do different levels and things like that.

How are they, you know, maybe without using a VRC previously, right? I mean, how are they handling that? I mean, does that mean that their fleet has to be bigger if they can't go from level to level? Where are the gains there? I would say so, yeah. The floor space that they would need is going to be huge compared if you're going to go vertical. So I would say that's a huge benefit. Definitely, definitely. And what do you think about that, Steve?

Definitely, the floor space is probably the starting point, but density for storage in a rack-supported mezzanine with decking is the most common application that we're starting to see. I wouldn't say start, we're actually several years into seeing traditional rack-supported structures where things are manually palletized and stored by forklifts being replaced with

you know, say a five-level rack-supported decking system where, depending on the types of pallets that they're storing, they may have some levels that can allow a pallet height of 72 inches or even 84 inches. And then they can, at other levels, they might have, you know, 48-inch pallet height. And then maybe the upper level is only...

36 inch pallet height. And so with these, most of these, they're picking at the ground level. And then at the upper levels, the pallets are returned and stored based on the pallet height. So whenever the pallet comes back from the pick station onto our lift, the controls that we supply have a

basically load height sensing. So once we know the height of the load that comes on the lift, we tell the WMS system how tall the product is and then they tell us what level to go store it at. So that feedback adds value in the density. If your pallet is now only 36 inch height, they know that that pallet can be stored on the top floor. Whereas

Historically, they would randomly store that product. The density is reduced because they have dead space above the shorter pallet if it's stored on one that could handle 72-inch load height. So it's just adding value in just little ways by measuring...

the actual height putting it on the floor that actually can can accommodate it most effectively and maximize the space that way interesting interesting yeah and i think that's it that's interesting to point that out right because there is you know that thought that like okay well we're going to multiple levels because we want to maximize our cube right but then you know i go and put a pallet that's just like you said 36 inches in a space that could accommodate 72 well i'm

I'm not really fully maximizing, right? Even though like I've gone up, I'm not kind of filled out and been optimized to think about that. So I think it's super smart that you bring that up and definitely very interesting to be able to navigate around that and have the, I guess, the dictation from the WMS and then the understanding from the VRC on which level to go to as well. So at what point does it make sense for a company to invest in like a VRC solution?

VRCs, as we typically know them, are manually loaded. So you can load them with a pallet jack, you could load them manually, whether it's a box or whatever. And so obviously the first step is floor space, if they have a mezzanine, they can store vertically.

The other area is sometimes between levels of the facility, you might have production on this level and production on another level, so you obviously need to move the product up there. But historically, VRCs, the code, the way that it was written, was designed for manually loading the product on the VRC, send the platform up and offload it at one of the upper levels. It could be two or ten, it doesn't really matter.

The challenge that I think we've seen as technology has evolved is that we

We no longer just manually load it. We've seen AMRs. We've seen conveyor integration. We started with conveyor integration a long time ago. But more of an automated system where instead of having interlock gates at the landings, we now have conveyor feeding on and off it. Or we have AMRs feeding on and off. One of the things that we've learned about AMRs is they're a lot more picky than a conveyor.

conveyor you can have multiple chain driven live rollers that align based on the elevation and if you have a little bit of variation in the carriage height or a little bit of movement it really didn't matter. With an AMR they're a lot more sensitive. So

You'll see people exhibiting here services to measure the flatness of the floor and the smoothness of the floor. And that's important for AMRs. Otherwise, the board that the AMR is carrying will vibrate and come off if it's empty. And your load can become unstable just driving around. It's no different whenever the AMR drives onto the VRC. If it drives onto the VRC and there's a big bump,

your load can shift and become unstable. So what we've done over the years is basically evolved our equipment to accommodate AMRs and those tighter requirements, both in elevations and in load measuring. If you have anything overhanging the pallet, the AMR knows that it's carrying a pallet. And once it comes onto our lift, we know if

if the AMR is on the lift, we also can tell the system how tall the product is, as I mentioned earlier, but confirming the load is there, confirming that it's not overhanging the sides of the platform. Those are all things that we integrate into our control system so that we're managing the AMR and the load that it's carrying. Interesting, yeah. Yeah, I think it's interesting you point out there's a little more sensitivity around with the AMR itself. So, I mean, do you think that...

If you look at that scenario, there's more to watch for and more sensors around that to be able to navigate that. And like you said, if you don't have some overhang or something like that that's going to get in the way, do you see that it's still an advantage to go the way of AMR because of those situations? Or do you see that sometimes it can become a headache and maybe get hung up in that VRC?

Well, I think AMRs are going to be used on VRCs, and it's like any automation. You have to prove it, and then you have to address the things that arise around. I mean, we could drive an AMR on any of our standard VRCs, but whether in real run rate application, you're trying to get to a certain run rate, it's competing with other types of solutions, whether that's conveyor or the variety of AMRs because it's not just one type. But our experience has been that

If you address the details, whether that is electronically through controls or through designing track systems that can align physically with a track system. Because some AMRs just run randomly on the floor and follow QR codes or other types of electronic sensing. Right.

Or you have an AMR that runs in tracks, that runs two or four directions just in tracks. So we can integrate the tracks on the carriage or we can integrate the QR, whatever the sensor is looking for. And understanding the differences in those and then that also affects what other equipment goes on the platform or what control systems are required. But ultimately...

to make it a success, it has to pay for itself. And you can, with an AMR, it's basically a different solution than a conveyor. And I heard a really good speaker yesterday morning at one of the network sessions talking about the difference between a conveyor system and an AMR solution. Sure.

And he's basically saying, he looks at it as conveyors are like a train and AMR is like a delivery van. So they both serve different functions and, you know,

you can get a lot of product on a conveyor going in one direction. But once it gets there, it's handy to get it off into a delivery van to deliver it to your house. So it's a good way of looking at it. I mean, AMRs are definitely going to serve a purpose. I think in the future, the thousands or whatever of AMRs, providers that are out there will probably be consolidated. And their success is going to be based on how well they handle the details, whether they're, you know,

using all of the technology that's available to really make it work. Because if it doesn't work, they'll take it out.

Interesting, interesting. Gives the overall flexibility to the system. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so I'm curious, I mean, to that point, I mean, it's an interesting thing like that, you know, you look at the conveyor, as you said, as a train, right? And then the AMR is a delivery van, essentially. And I really like that, actually. I'm going to take that one too. But, you know, I think that, you know, you look at that, do we see, you know, potentially where...

the conveyor starts to become less and more AMR implemented to move that product because there is a little more flexibility, maybe a little less permanent like a conveyor is to that end. What do you think about that? I would definitely say so. I think it's looking like it's going to be a bit of a future. So we'll think that the conveyors will be less and less and less. I would say also in terms of redundancy, overall maintenance, the floor space itself. So there are huge benefits in that.

going with the AMRs. So I think that's definitely in the nearby future, it will be more and more. Interesting, interesting. And so I really appreciate you both stopping by here and talking to me today and talking a little bit about some of these challenges here and kind of the market in general and what you're hearing from the floor as well. I think it's very insightful. And if people want to get in touch, if they want to learn more about CSS and what kind of resources are available to them, what's the best way to do that?

Well, the MHI website has links to the industry pages, and so all of the

members of the industry group have links to their websites present there and I would say if you're not familiar with the industry groups, attend a trade show or reach out to any of the member groups and we all try to help contribute both our equipment for specific applications but we also try to help, we partner together to address code concerns and a lot of things that kind of

we all experience. And so we share resources in some ways to address those questions as they arise. And the MHI group, we have monthly meetings where we talk about code concerns. Last month we had a meeting that was related to safety. Because VRCs and safety, it's all changing. And so as we all, as the code changes, the requirements change, and we as a group have to

to be consistent in how we apply those. Yeah, absolutely. I think that safety should be number one concern, always, definitely, no matter what the solution is, right? So really appreciate you both stopping by here and talking with us and sharing some of these insights as well and the resources that are available through the industry group. So thank you very much and hope you enjoy the little bit of time that's left of ProMath this year.

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