Conveyor is still the highway between the robots

Modern Materials Handling’s equipment report on the robot-enabled warehouse says conveyors and sorters are anchoring flow, volume, and the structure that flexible tools plug into. Jack Zbiegien of Regal Rexnord Automation Solutions is quoted on conveyor and sortation complementing AMRs in shipping, sortation, and buffering.

Brad Perry of Fives Intralogistics is cited on the familiar starting point: interest in AMRs often begins with a wish to avoid fixed infrastructure. The report’s conclusion is that conveyor and sortation still set the pace in many buildings, and that the next designs treat conveyor as a modular, sensor-driven highway between robotic cells rather than as an island of its own.

That is a maintenance mix. A zone can now include a merge, a divert, and a handoff to a robot. The stopped carton still needs a named cause before a part is changed.