AI-Based High-Density Shuttle Rack Service System

Enhancing storage capacity and shipping efficiency

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought demand for better logistics for online shopping and more efficient product warehousing. In traditional warehouse operations, moving products requires a great deal of human time and labor, and workers suffer physically when they are required to move large items over long periods of time. This is why auto­mated guided vehicle (AGV) technology was invented.

In Taiwan many small and medium sized enterprises have introduced AGV technology, and there are firms specializing in manufacturing AGVs. The artificial intelligence (AI) based high-density shuttle rack service system jointly developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), HCT Logistics, and iAmech, is a major step forward. Janet Chen, chief operating officer of the Service Systems Technology Center at ITRI, says that this system is unique in being able to service storage racks up to 14 levels high and being compatible with shuttle-based automated storage and retrieval systems, greatly increasing effective storage space. Moreover, it refines the application of AI technology to various aspects of the warehousing process.

When a product enters the warehouse at a logistics center using ITRI’s AI dynamic decision technology, the system automatically measures the item’s dimensions. Next, through an AI algorithm and big data analysis, popular products that are often bought together are placed near each other in order to reduce the distance that they must be moved. When a consumer places an order online, the system can analyze the types and numbers of products ordered and map out the optimal route for retrieving the items from the racks, so that items for the same order can arrive at the order picking station at virtually the same time.

Chen says that once the storage bins that bring goods to the picking station are returned to their storage locations, the system will work out the optimal route to ensure that the next retrieval operation is similarly efficient. Also, even before customers place orders, the system will use historical order data to estimate the most popular items for sale in high and low seasons and store the products in suitable locations in advance. This resolves the problems that many e-commerce platforms face when they run sales promotions of their workforce being overwhelmed and products not getting shipped on time.

This smart warehousing system was first proposed by HCT Logistics, which then worked with ITRI, handling the warehouse operational management side of the pro­ject while ITRI developed the AI technology. iAmech later came on board to build the automated equipment. In 2019, after two years of intensive discussions and on-site inspections among the three parties, the AI automated logistics center created for the Yahoo! Taiwan online shopping ­portal came into operation. The use of this new technology has greatly upgraded the efficiency of filling online orders at Yahoo!, so that it takes only about ten minutes from the time a product is ordered until order picking is completed, and manpower has been reduced by 30%.

Since this technology won an Edison Award, inquiries about it have come in from Taiwanese businesses in South Africa, the US, and Southeast Asia. Some firms hope to use the new technology to replace slow and error-prone AGV systems, while others in densely populated areas hope that the tall, compact storage system of this smart warehouse can optimize their use of space and manpower.

Janet Chen says that in the future this smart warehouse system will also be used for fresh food products, to reduce the health problems that workers suffer due to long exposure to low temperatures in cold storage facilities. It is hoped that the system will both occupy less land and provide a more comfortable and convenient environment for people.

In 2019 Yahoo Taiwan’s online shopping fulfillment center began using ITRI’s AI-based shuttle rack service system. It now takes only ten minutes from the time a customer submits an order for the products to arrive at the order picking station. (courtesy of ITRI)

The AI-based warehousing system developed jointly by the Industrial Technology Research Institute, HCT Logistics, and iAmech won a gold award in the AI Applications category at the 2021 Edison Awards. (courtesy of ITRI)

MetabColor microbial dyes

Eco-friendly dyes

Brightly colored clothes in urban shop windows draw consumers in to buy. But there’s nothing to be happy about when these same colors are released into rivers and seas. To address this knotty problem, MetabColor microbial dyes, developed in Taiwan, offer a solution for the textile industry.

These “microbial dyes” are in fact pigments produced by genetically modified bacteria. Nancy Tang, deputy general director of ITRI’s Material and Chemical Research Labor­atories, explains that the research team inserted gene clusters into the bacterium Escherichia coli to enable its ­metabolic processes to produce specific pigments that can be used to make dyes of various colors.

The research team then give the pigment material, which contains unwanted proteins, to the Jintex Group to conduct the second stage of the process: extraction and purification. Using patented technology, they can extract a 90%-pure indigo pigment from the raw product. Moreover, their process uses water rather than organic solvents, so that no environ­mentally harmful chemicals are involved at any time. Jintex chairwoman Sabine Juang says: “The performance of these microbial dyes is equivalent to that of traditional chemical dyes currently on the market. Moreover, cloth made using these dyes has no unsafe chemical residues on its surface. This is an important breakthrough for the global textile indus­try to be able to move toward sustainability.” 

Jintex was involved in the development of the microbial dyes from the early stages and decided to make the nat­ural fiber cotton a focal point of development. Cotton is the main raw material for over 90% of the denim fabric produced in the world, so Jintex selected indigo, a color commonly used for denim, for the development of the earliest microbial dye. They also developed patented technology for extracting the indigo pigment.

ITRI inserted various gene sequences into Escherichia coli bacteria, enabling the bacteria to produce a variety of different pigments through their metabolic processes. (courtesy of ITRI)

ITRI is currently developing microbial dyes in the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. (courtesy of ITRI)

MetabColor microbial dyes won a silver award in the category Primers, Coatings, and Dyes at the 2021 Edison Awards.

Highly stable, geographically unlimited

When Eclat Textile Company was working with ITRI, they learned that the ITRI team had accidentally produced an “earth tone” pigment. Eclat carried out some market research and discovered that earth tones are very pop­ular colors in the market and were very much in line with their own brand needs, so they began test-dyeing cloth with this color. Eclat assistant vice president Hung Jui-ting says: “Compared to traditional chemical dyes, when using microbial dyes we haven’t met with any especially dif­ficult technological challenges, and they are also cleaner.” To make their finished products more sustainable, Eclat uses fiber from recycled fishing nets to make the fabric for microbial dyeing.

Both microbial dyes and plant-based dyes are natural dyes, but natural dyes created from materials such as coch­ineal, agricultural crops and flowers are limited to specific geographical areas, and their production volume is affected by the weather. Thus plant-based dyes compare unfavorably with microbial dyes, which have the advantages of being globally scalable and offering reliability in terms of production quantities.

In addition, over at Eclat Hung Jui-ting has found that when microbial dyes are used to color fabric, they are less affected than plant-based dyes by factors like humidity and temperature. This makes the dyeing process more reli­able, so that the color and quality of dyed fabrics is very consistent across different batches, which is critical when working with fashion brands.

Nancy Tang says that ITRI is continuing to develop micro­bial dyes in other colors, such as the three primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—as well as black, which is the most technically complex color to produce. Sabine Juang and Hung Jui-ting believe that at a time of accelerated global action on the environment, this technology constitutes a ­major breakthrough for the textile industry. Thus far many inter­national fashion brands and textile companies have made inquiries about MetabColor microbial dyes, and once the Euro­pean Union begins collecting carbon taxes on imports of energy-intensive products in 2023, pollution-free microbial dyes look set to become new stars in the textile market.

The Eclat Textile Company is using an earth-tone microbial dye in its sportswear, which is made of fiber from recycled fishing nets.

The technology developed by ITRI and Jintex for making indigo-colored microbial dye is already fully mature.(courtesy of ITRI)

ITRI, JINTEX and Eclat respectively were responsible for the basic R&D for microbial dyes, the production of dyeing auxiliaries, and final fabric dyeing. Their partnership can be described as an “iron triangle” of textile technology development.