In January 2018, DHL Supply Chain deployed six autonomous mobile robots (AMR) from Locus Robotics in an 18,000-square-foot area in a facility handling medical devices. Long considered one of the most innovative of the world`s third-party logistics (3PL) providers, DHL Supply Chain understood a lot was still to be learned from an immature technology, but it wanted to get ahead of the curve and its competition.

Fast forward, and DHL recently announced it has deployed more than 2,000 Locus bots in North America and has surpassed 100 million units picked across more than a dozen North American facilities. There have been a lot of learnings along the way.

The same organization is now tackling autonomous lift trucks. As it did with AMRs, DHL Supply Chain is starting small, with a fleet of nine autonomous lift trucks (Crown Equipment) in an 800,000-square-foot facility in Findlay, Ohio. As with the AMRs, the initial application is limited to a portion of the 800,000-square-foot facility and is managing a select group of mid- to slow-moving SKUs. The application is also measured, limited to the putaway and retrieval of pallets from double-deep pallet rack going up six locations.

However, if history is any guide, we can expect those numbers to expand in the coming years as the technology matures, and as DHL Supply Chain gains experience and can apply its learnings to Other processes. In fact, the organization is already piloting a competing technology in another facility, as it did with AMRs, and eyeing additional locations where it services the same client as in Findlay.

As with AMRs, operational reasons called for bringing in more automation, says Mark Smith, senior vice president of operations. [In 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic, labor challenges were gaining momentum, and we knew we had to do something to change the face of that game," says Smith.

But, so was staying ahead of the competition by having a seat at the table in the advancement of a promising technology. That is also the case with autonomous lift trucks, says Sally Miller, CIO North America for DHL Supply Chain.

She notes that DHL has accelerated its digitalization program in response to 12 different trends it monitors and believes will impact the supply chain. Examples of those trends include data analytics, visibility and autonomous vehicles. [Innovation is the future of our business," she says.

Smith and Miller both acknowledge that autonomous lift trucks have a way to go before they are routinely deployed. But they also expect the technology to mature quickly, especially as more vehicles are deployed in the field, much like the way AMR technology expanded.

[Operationally, we`re probably two to five years from where it will evolve into our sites commonly," says Smith. [Right now, people are more productive than the autonomous vehicles when they`re working. But we know it`s just a matter of time before [the vehicles] gain efficiency and productivity, and we deploy more of them."