States Logistics, a California third-party logistics provider, put a KUKA KR IONTEC industrial arm running Contoro Robotics' AdaptAI software onto the job of unloading floor-loaded semi-trailers at one of its distribution centers. The system uses sensor-driven adjustment to handle shifting loads and irregular trailer geometry without a person intervening, which is what separates it from earlier trailer-unloading attempts that needed uniformly stacked freight. A year into the deployment, the companies report roughly 450 trailers offloaded and additional units planned.
Manual trailer unloading is among the most physically punishing jobs in a building, and it is a real accomplishment to take people out of it. The measurement question, though, is one every operator considering this should ask before the capital goes in: was the dock the constraint? A trailer that takes ninety minutes to unload is only costing detention if the door was going to be released, the appointment was going to be met, and the receiving queue was ready for the freight. Where those things are not true — and they frequently are not — the hours come back to the yard, not to the P&L. The evidence for which case a given building is in is already in the appointment times, the yard moves, the door assignments and the load start stamps. It is worth reading before the arm is quoted, not after.