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The beverage industry, along with electronics, textiles and food, is very volatile in terms of creating and maintaining an infrastructure that has flexibility in capacity and the capability to meet consumer demands on a periodic and sometimes instantaneous basis.

With a growing number of products in the marketplace and an evolving retail landscape, beverage warehouses are faced with a lot of work and a minimal amount of time and manpower to do it. As robotic technology becomes more accessible, it’s helping many manufacturers achieve their operations goals.

Voice-first technology continues to proliferate for consumers. However, beverage warehouses also have seen the benefits of utilizing voice technology as they tackle SKU proliferation within the beverage market.

Forklifts have long been a staple in beverage warehouses. Yet, demand for new, sustainable technologies, like electric lift trucks, as well as the incorporation of the right combination of slotting and storage strategies to increase capacity and picking efficiency are driving the market.

Although automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and automated guided carts (AGCs) have been in the market for more than 40 years, a renewed interest has emerged in “true robotic systems” that consistently and predictably transport loads of materials to places that might otherwise be serviced by manually driven forklift trucks, conveyors or manual cart transport, experts say. “Interest is soaring,” says Laura McConney, marketing coordinator at JBT Corp., Chalfont, Pa. “Customers no longer wonder whether they should install AGVs. They know they need them and just want to develop the best implementation plan. Customers are well beyond considering beta site testing and have moved onto enterprise-wide deployments.

The supply chain always is a topic of conversation because virtually every industrial operation machine designer constantly is attempting to thoroughly understand operating conditions and create the most efficient, timely and economical manufacturing environment that can be used for converting raw materials into product, producing packaged products and delivering finished products to the consumer. This is especially true in all segments of the beverage industry.

Ranked among the leading mission-critical components, palletizers and depalletizers must incorporate safety, flexibility, speed and performance in order to keep operations humming along, experts say.

Today’s industrial environment is filled with ways to increase profit, meet challenges of competition, improve market share, reduce operating costs, and manage state-of-the-art production and distribution facilities throughout the supply chain.

Whether a manufacturing plant, brewery, distillery, warehouse or distribution facility, or a combination thereof, countless factors should be considered when it comes to designing and operating a plant. Among them, sustainability and carbon footprints are a common thread.

Across the total beverage spectrum, the results in volume, market share and profit have been less than desirable for the past three to five years at least. Many factors have affected increases and decreases; however, the cost of producing a case of sellable beverages for the market begs a major question: what is the total production cost for each case?