Bespoke Manufacturing Integrates Zebra AMRs

Warehouse operations today find themselves caught between high consumer demand and high labor shortages. It’s not an ideal position to be in, considering orders cannot be met in a timely manner without a workforce to support operations.

Those challenges are prompting companies to seek alternative solutions that will increase throughput and efficiency, and IoT is answering the call. In the case of Apparel manufacturer Bespoke Manufacturing (BMC), autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) helped drive operational efficiency to meet demand.

BMC caught wind of AMRs and selected S&H Systems and Zebra’s Fetch AMRs and fixed industrial scanners to improve visibility and productivity. Zebra’s solution will improve BMC’s workflow visibility from initial printing and fabric cutting to packing and shipping. As a result, efficiency and productivity are increased, allowing the manufacturer to scale up to meet growing demand.

“With Zebra’s unique solution, we are able to realize significant savings in labor time while retaining an ability to instantly scale up to meet seasonal demand surges and seamlessly modify our production,” said J. Kirby Best, president and CEO of BMC.

BMC selected Zebra’s automation solution to enable frontline workers to focus on production. Zebra’s Fetch AMRs are fully integrated in the production process to keep production lines moving and enable lean manufacturing by removing non-value-added activities. The AMRs also free up human workers to concentrate on more important professional tasks. 

The two fixed industrial scanners will provide visibility into the movement of each piece in production, directing Fetch robots to advance them throughout the workflow from one destination to the next, all the way to the packing and shipping stage for finished products.

Zebra’s FS20 scanner offers multiple connectivity options that easily integrate into a PLC or host network. This enables primary scanning applications to feed all the processes that drive the business. The FS40 scanner delivers a broad set of capabilities required to meet complex barcode capture requirements in a single package.

“Zebra helps businesses like BMC leverage the power of industrial and robotics automation to unlock new levels of performance that empower their front-line workers to do their best work,” said James Lawton, vice president and general manager of robotics automation, Zebra Technologies. 

BMC anticipates expanding the automation solution, designed and integrated by S&H Systems, across its existing and planned manufacturing sites to improve productivity company-wide.