In an effort to boost performance, distribution centers everywhere are in a constant cycle of upgrades, adding new technology and material handling equipment. The process is necessary to meet the demands brought on by rising e-commerce volumes, escalating customer expectations, soaring product return rates, and labor shortages.But it can be difficult to predict how each new upgrade will affect the operation of the system as a whole. So many companies use computer simulations to model the impact of each change on the total workflow, allowing them to study changes virtually before making them physically.Industries such as automotive manufacturing have used this approach for years to avoid expensive downtime, bottlenecks, and shutdowns. And now the e-commerce sector is adopting the same tactics as retailers, brands, and third-party logistics service providers (3PLs) struggle to keep up with consumers’ demands for faster fulfillment.But as logistics practitioners embark on these DC simulation exercises, many are finding that they need to apply new strategies in building their simulation models to account for the pace of technological change in material handling automation, says Abhineet Mittal, research science manager for simulation and digital twins with the e-commerce and logistics giant Amazon’s worldwide design engineering team.“The DC space is changing faster than people can keep up,” Mittal says. “For example, there used to be a rule of thumb that this length of conveyor should work for this volume of throughput. But now, systems are not as simple; robotics and automation go in, so you have a lot of…
