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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

It's only a matter of time before the products are packaged to accommodate automatic systems picking orders; at the moment (as the video shows) the robot has to be adjusted specifically for the wide variety of packages.

Anyway I was thinking, why not just have a long row (can go vertical as well) of product dispensers where all orders just go under? I mean they'd pass thousands of dispensing stations, but the output would be really consistent. And there'd be shortcuts here and there. I probably have baggage handling in mind.

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That's been done for products that are reasonably uniform. Digi-Key uses it for some parts. Fulfillment centers for drugstores use it.

You still have to load the dispensers.

The problem that comes into my mind is that dispensers are tech, while bins are literally a bunch of plastic/cardboard/metal. But on the pros, your system is a FIFO queue, while the system in the video is LIFO, the latter is not good for goods with an expiry date.

I am currently working in a warehouse with 80k unique items, i am planning to automate the system (because currently it's using little to none automation, mainly because there is a conflict of interest) and a system of bins with the pickers/refilles zooming on the top is the best solution I've found so far.

I think that i will make the project open hardware/software.

Food factories are FIFO, and you want FIFO dispensing, so I can only imagine the optimal solution is FIFO transport. I could readily imagine "magazines" for anything coming in cardboard boxes - spring or gravity fed, high-aspect ratio stacks in some kind of frame. Specially built container trucks which are easy to load with these "food mags". 6Axis robots to load them into the factory.

Spent mags get put into an empty trailer and sent back to the factory.

Loose bag items are trickier, but if you put those in reusable plastic totes, and put those in the mags, and automatically eject them into another mag, I think it would work well with the existing suction arm ones.

Are you picturing something like a firearm magazine? Because those are LIFO.

No, a queue, like a clip (actual clip not a small-arms magazine, which as you mention are push-down LIFO).

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